I have received an email from an Orthodox Jew in Israel who questions evolution. He’s asked me five questions, which I’ve put below along with his email.
I wrote him back several times, trying to ascertain if he was simply trying to waste my time by giving me “stumpers,”, or was really interested in the answers. He affirmed the latter, although he said he wasn’t going to instantly convert to accepting evolution based on the answers. In fact, I suspect he’s not, but I thought it would be worth a try. The questions, as you will see, almost seem rhetorical, and some are really out there.
Instead of answering him myself, I thought I’d put these questions to the readers, and then refer this person to the thread. I know we have experts in all of these (Linda Grilli, for instance, will be amused by question 4), so if you have a response to any one, put it below. They center on the “gap” between humans and other species.
And feel free to add any other advice you have for this person, but remember—BE POLITE.
Dear Professor Coyne,
I’ve read your interview on “Haaretz” (22.3.2013) and watched your outstanding lecture on “youtube”.
First of all, congratulations for your new book.
I am what you might refer to as a creationist by view, due to my Jewish-Orthodox beliefs. We in Judaism don’t seek proof for our beliefs nor we try to settle them with what science finds to be true. If you wish to find logical flaws in the Torah there are better places to start than the story of creation (the whole two versions of it).
For me, religion and science are two distinct fields that shouldn’t be measured by the same criteria (to figure that one out i had to dig deep into the writings of prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Israels’ most influential philosopher and an Orthodox Jew himself, for whom the word scientist would be a degrading understatement).
Having said all that, i would like to present a few questions, on the scientific level:1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
2) why can’t we find another two species with common ancestry that manifest such a gap in their evolution?
3) why are we the only ones to to develop speech?
4) will goats, for example, ever talk if given enough time?
5) when did the spider and the whale departed in evolution?My apology if these questions seem extremely dumb.
I look forward for your answers.Best wishes,
[Name redacted]
Jeruslaem
Israel
Sub
sub
sub sub
At 155 comments I think I’m a bit late to this party. But in case the conversation continues constructively: [sub]
I’m baffled by this: “If you wish to find logical flaws in the Torah there are better places to start than the story of creation (the whole two versions of it).” Mainly because the Creation stories are at the very beginning of the Torah. Why wouldn’t you start there? If you hit the ground running a marathon going in the wrong direction, there’s really no point taking a look at the middle third of your journey to divine what went wrong.
More to the point:
Evolution tries to explain earth’s biodiversity and its origins.
The fact that evolution conflicts with the first story of the Bible is coincidence. If the Bible explained creation in Judges instead of Genesis, then that’s where the conflict would be.
It’s not as if Darwin opened his Bible to the first page and said, “Well now, how can I disprove this?”
As a scientist Darwin went about explaining biology. It caused him great pains to realize the evidence conflicted with the religious beliefs of his time.
Not to beat a dead horse here, but I’d like to revisit our Jewish friends comment.
“If you wish to find logical flaws in the Torah there are better places to start than the story of creation (the whole two versions of it).”
I think this tells us a lot about the letter writer (and perhaps many creationists). His assumption is that we “wish to find logical flaws in the Torah.”
Religious folks tend to begin and end in their scriptures.
Science does not set out to “find logical flaws” in anyone’s scripture. Science sets out to explain the world — biology, geology, chemistry, whatever.
When astronomy went about explaining the solar system, it bumped up against the Catholic church’s belief that Earth was the center of the Universe. Astronomy didn’t set out to disprove Catholic belief, it just happened that the church was wrong.
The same with evolution. Scientists, including Darwin, didn’t set out to disprove Genesis. They set out to find out about life. That their finding conflict with a literal interpretation of the creation story is a coincidence (or perhaps inevitable considering the bronze age origins of the story).
Creationists, including the letter writer, start by misunderstanding the motives of science. This leads to taking things personally — “science is attacking my god!” or “science is trying to replace my god!” Taking things personally, leads to people trying to defend themselves (and their god) rather than trying to understand the science. It reduces the discussion to emotion rather than an honest search for fact.
Insightful.
It isn’t science which is at odds with religion.
It’s that religion is at odds with reality.
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“It isn’t science which is at odds with religion.
It’s that religion is at odds with reality.”
Great line. That deserves to be printed on thousands of atheist t-shirts!
😀
I’ll get down on it, but for brevity
SCIENCE
isn’t at odds with
RELIGION
RELIGION
is at odds with
REALITY
The Ingersoll quote someone suggested (“Our ignorance is God; What we know is science”)
is available from the link on my name.
I approve!
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If the link were correct…
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I would buy one of these.
Except, goddamn, that science IS at odds with religion
+1
I knew something bothered my about the rabbi’s comment about the Torah, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
The redacting of authors from both old and new testaments have always been a problem for non-believers; how can it be taken seriously. I think the questions are mute.
I think you meant to say the questions are moot, but maybe not.
I stand corrected. Spelling was never my best subject…
I kind of like that: mute questions.
The problem isn’t the spelling ; the problem is that “mute” and “moot” are extremely different concepts and substituting “mute” for “moot” vastly changes the meaning of a phrase. What leaves my mouth as meaning “this is a complex problem worthy and demanding of careful consideration” arrives at the other end of the conversation as “this is a problem that shouldn’t be talked about”.
(That’s the English language’s problem, not yours. But it’s also the joy of such a complex frustrating fascinating mess of a language. While I was writing this, I was thinking of a “moot”, which is nearly synonymous with a “thing” (I grew up near “Thing Don”, the place where the Thing is held ; Findon these centuries) which leads me to Thingvettlir, the (geological) dividing line between Europe and America and seat of the oldest recognisable representative parliament. What a magnificent mess of a language!)
I like the cut of your jib.
1) The gaps in abilities are in my opinion not gaps per se, but differences. These differences exist because at some point, the lines diverged. Since evolution does not follow a pre-determined path, it is logical that different lines will develop different abilities.
2) The differences in abilities between apes and humans is not something that be quantified, so this question is impossible to answer without subjective bias. I believe there are examples of two species with common ancestry that manifest a difference in their abilities. The Burmese Python and the Mediterranean House Gecko have a common ancestor and have vastly different abilities, for example. Some might argue that apes and humans have bigger differences, but since this gap in abilities can not be quantified, how can we objectively determine which two sets have a bigger gap in abilities?
3) Many species have methods of communication, quite possibly to a much greater degree than we give them credit for. Speech is something I suspect is most likely to develop in species that are social in nature. Dolphins I believe do have learned communication that is analogous to human speech.
4) It is not possible to know if descendants of goats ever will. We can speculate, but there is no way to scientifically test our speculation.
5) I have no clue when this happened.
Regarding No. 1:
I agree, and I think it’s also important to note that our (humans’) abilities, it seems to me, stem more from tool discovery/use than anything about “only” us, in a brute physical sense. Once we developed simple tools/discovered fire, we became able to run exponentially increasing circles around other species. It didn’t necessarily have to be our line that gained this advantage.
If you encounter a hungry lion on the African savannah, but have no vehicle and no weapon, you will likely be lunch. Where’s our superior ability in that context?
On #3: No other species has as great a brain mass to body weight ratio (full stop, I think), combined with a pair of limbs not required for locomotion, and an intensely social way of life.
All accidents of history.
#4. According to TimeTree.org, 782 mya.
@5 :
according to the timetree of life
http://timetree.org/index.php?found_taxon_a=9721|whale&found_taxon_b=6918|spider&action=
it is
about :
whale
Cetacea Versus
spider
Phoneutria nigriventer 782.7 Million Years Ago
Mean: 782.7 Mya
Median: 725.5 Mya
Expert Result: 910.0 Mya
Regarding 1: All animals share a common ancestry. The reason there is a gap (however large) between humans and apes is the same as the reason there is a gap between dolphins and cats, or butterflies and octopuses. Once two lines of descendants begins to diverge, one leads “here” and the other leads “there”. The size of the gap (in general) is often one indicator of the number of generations since that initial divergence.
2. See above. We can. Pick any two. Or pick “man” and any other.
3. Are we?
4. Perhaps, but by then they’d probably not fit our current definition of “goat”.
5. I don’t know, but I am not an evolutionary biologist. I’ll leave that up to someone else to answer.
Heck, compare a tiger and a tabby cat. Or, for that matter, a Great Dane and a Chihuahua.
+1
Or a cabbage, broccoli, kholrabi and cauliflower: All descended from the same ancestral cabbage that looks like none of them, in only a few thousand years!
Heck, IIRC, you can change a Saanen goat into a Nubian in just five (or maybe seven–very short time, anyway) generations. Linda G. will know. 🙂
(Maybe that number is only for the Swiss breeds…)
Because we inhabit different niches. Another possible big difference is that our chance discovery of fire helped enormously to allow early humans to extract far more calories from our food which allowed us to go down paths denied to other species.
Fire is a part, but there are other examples of related species that look very different. Consider whales and their land-based relatives.
He’s not asking you to answer his questions, he’s asking you to teach him biology. Did I miss something? When did you volunteer to be everyone’s personal biology tutor?
Seriously, don’t they have universities in Israel?
They do! And pretty good ones, too. Harvard exists, yet, creationists and other ignoramuses are still legion in America.
“2) why can’t we find another two species with common ancestry that manifest such a gap in their evolution?”
We can:
A) Tree
B) Dog
Common ancestry. Quite a difference in abilities, I would say
I think the implication is that he’s asking about species which departed at a similar time as proto-humans departed from proto-chimps.
More likely, as a creationist, he has no concept of the time involved at all.
There’s a one-stop shop for most “how long since X and Y had a common ancestor?” questions, at http://www.timetree.org
There’s even a phone app, so you can settle arguments in bars. Or synagogues.
Ooooh, snap!
Broccoli and cauliflower
ummm, let’s see. One does the wetting, the other gets wetted ; other than that, not really a huge difference in intellect. Minor physical differences ; both eukaryotes.
Well, first I’d advise our orthodox Jew to read up on evolutionary theory. First, OJ, you need to know what evolution is before you try to attack it. That’ll answer a lot of your questions about why certain animals don’t have the same abilities as humans. A good place to start is here, in my opinion: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html Or just read Dr. Coyne’s book.
Evolution allows advantageous traits (in a certain environment) to be passed along to descendents. Goats communicate but they don’t need to speak like we do since their environment doesn’t select for that. Could they speak like humans, or close, someday? Perhaps, if speaking helped them pass their genetics along to descendents.
You seem to have a certain anthropocentric view in that you think humans are better than any other animal. I certainly can’t see better than a falcon, sense odors better than a dog or run faster than a cheetah.
As for not wanting science and religion to be judged by the same criteria, why not? We have claims by theists that there is physical evidence for their god and that their god interacts with humans, etc. If this is so, its existence should be able to be judged by the same requirements of evidence that the scientific method has. But I find that the problem is that the claimed evidence doesn’t exist and that is why theists want to claim that their religion shouldn’t be under the same scrutiny as science.
I’ll also have to say that Yeshayahu Leibowitz seems to be fairly famous, but “most influential”? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshayahu_Leibowitz
A philosopher who says to someone who lost their faith “then you didn’t really believe in God” is nothing special at all. Just one more apologist who is sure that his version of “god” is the only right one. Dime a dozen.
Seems more infamous aactually. To be fair, his explanation of “never believed in god” isn’t that bad. Besides, maybe he’s right, and I never believed— I was just expected to believe by those who were attempting to use their influence over my younger self to indoctrinate me. If belief has preconditions, known or unknown to the alleged ‘believer’, then it pretty much undermines the idea of faith. I’ve established a precondition for my return to Christianity— if Jesus ever shows up and keeps his promise then I’ll ‘my bad’ and bow.
Plus, he argued for separation of church and state and seemed to be an iconoclast (in the verbal sense, not that he actively took a hammer to tear down that Western Wall). Better than most (in)famous religious leaders here in the US today.
I do give him points for wanting a seperation of church and state, though it seems that he wanted that for his own benefit, that his version of his religion couldn’t be stepped on by a theocracy he didn’t agree with.
–which is also the reason it was put in the U.S. constitution, as I recall it. A couple of the heavyweight founding fathers assumed that their religion (Unitarianism) would triumph on its merits so long as the Baptists were kept away from the levers of power.
Well, he was exceptional in one respect: According to Wiki, he was born in 1994 and died in 1903, so is the only known instance of a person constructed from anti-matter.
that’s hilarious. Perhaps you are to read it right to left 🙂
Or fly better than, um, a fly.
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He is making a common mistake that human “abilities” are the end goal of evolution. Survival of the gene is the goal. Bacteria and many other organisms have survived just fine without space travel and iPhones. It is not necessary to evolve like humans in order to survive.
“Survival of the gene is the goal.”
Bingo.
(Anticipating the central idea of Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene (1976) by nearly two decades!)
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But not a conscious goal.
Not a conscious goal of evolution as evolution is a process, not an entity, but don’t most sexually reproductive species have a desire to intentionally reproduce and thus pass on their genes?
If something is capable of having a desire then you’d think that would be the first one it has.
I can’t tell if we’re splitting hairs here or not – the teleological idea that speech is the aim of evolution therefore goats will one day get it is very different from a goat wanting to breed.
No, I don’t think members of most sexually reproductive species have a desire to intentionally reproduce and thus pass on their genes. If you have a pet female cat or dog, she comes on heat and is willing, even eager to mate, and nearby (unmodified) males will go along with that. They certainly aren’t thinking about passing on their genes, since they don’t even know that genes exist, and is it at all plausible that your cat is thinking what a great idea it would be to get pregnant again? And if we think, not of the cat, but of the sexually reproductive nematode parasite in its gut, where is there a desire?
Cats don’t think “I must mate and pass on my DNA” obviously. But they think “I’d like to mate”. The fact that female cats are in heat doesn’t change that that’s what they must be thinking (physical changes affect behaviour is precisely the argument in favour of us having no free will too).
A nematode likely doesn’t think though. Is there something that is like being a cat? I think there is. Is there something that is like being a nematode? I think there is not. That’s the question that you have to ask when you decide if something is conscious.
“(unmodified)” 😀
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Most sexual reproducing animals have a sex drive… but I wouldn’t call this an “intention to reproduce”– generally, organisms are evolved in a way that makes them more likely to produce offspring that produce offspring.
When a dog humps your leg (or anything else), I doubt he is thinking about an intention to reproduce; Most creatures (including humans) were not thinking of reproducing while reproducing.
A retrospectively defined goal.
A mechanical consequence.
1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
Humans and apes are different, therefore they have different abilities. A common ancestry doesn’t mean things will be the same. That is exactly the point of evolution. Now the fact that there are many similarities shows that humans and apes are closer together on the ancestry tree, than for example humans and mushrooms. The fact that the ABILITIES are different has to do also with the fact that a small change in an organism can have a large change on it’s abilities. Like that thing about “a small change in direction can mean a large change in destination”.
2) why can’t we find another two species with common ancestry that manifest such a gap in their evolution?
everything is descended from a common ancestor, therefore any two living things which are very different show that we can find this difference again.
3) why are we the only ones to to develop speech?
We aren’t, our speech is just different from the speech we find in other animals like birds, dogs, monkeys, whales, dolphins, whatever.
4) will goats, for example, ever talk if given enough time?
sure, given enough time nearly everything is possible, however at that stage we probably wouldn’t call them goats any more.
5) when did the spider and the whale departed in evolution?
Long before either of them was either anything like a spider or a whale.
My answers as an enthusiastic amateur with a faulty memory. Caveat lector.
1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
All life shares common ancestry. The evidence demonstrates that our most recent common ancestors with other apes lived around six million years ago. For most of that time, our abilities were not vastly greater than those of our cousins. But eventually, our larger brains allowed us to innovate, an effect that was cumulative with the development of tool-making, language and eventually writing. Having a larger brain was such a massive advantage that ever larger brains were selected for until we reached the hard limit of women’s pelvis size.
2) why can’t we find another two species with common ancestry that manifest such a gap in their evolution?
As I pointed out, all species share common ancestors. But in terms of close relatives, there is nothing unusual about the degree of difference between humans and chimpanzees.
In fact, we’re not that different. Depending on how you count, we share somewhere between 95 and 99 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees. Morphologically too, we are practically identical. Aside from the amount of body hair, relative limb length, big toe shape and head size there’s hardly any difference. That last one of course had profound consequences but as a deviation from the ancestral norm, it hardly compares with the neck of a giraffe or the trunk of an elephant.
3) why are we the only ones to to develop speech?
Other animals get along just fine without it.
Also, many animals do have something a lot like human speech. Whales and dolphins have some sort of speech (and dolphins seem to have names for each other), birds communicate intricately through song, bees communicate through dance, and chimpanzees communicate in much the same way we do, although on a much more primitive level.
Spoken language requires a number of factors, not least of which is a large brain capable of abstract thought. Among primates, our bipedalism may have been important in allowing our vocal chords to develop the complexity needed to produce the intricate sounds necessary for language.
4) will goats, for example, ever talk if given enough time?
Time alone is not sufficient for such changes to take place. There has to be selection pressure. Goats seem to be doing just fine as stupid grass-eaters who are good at climbing. A slightly more intelligent goat would (probably) not have any survival advantage over her more dim-witted cousins.
But who knows? If there’s a mass extinction and goats come out unscathed, they are likely to evolve in diverse ways to fill the empty niches. One of those ways may include the development of intelligence and perhaps even speech.
5)when did the spider and the whale departed in evolution?
Around 590 million years ago (according to Dawkins). That ancestor would of course have been the common ancestor of not just spiders and whales but of almost all animals.
According to http://www.timetree.org, it’s 782.7 Million Years Ago, using Cetacea and Phoneutria as the taxons.
Using Arachnida instead of Phoneutria gets the same result.
Thanks. Great resource. I wasn’t aware of it and I took the figure from the Wikipedia page on “The Ancestor’s Tale”. It’s worth noting that Timetree’s figures range from 560 to 1200 MYA
Re: 5
The TimeTree app on my phone cites a median value of 725.5 million years ago (based on 22 studies that I don’t have the time to pull and review – however if he wants to check them out it’s a free download. It was clearly well before I got up this morning.
Oops – thats what comes from going to coffee and hitting submit when I get back. Beaten to the punch!
did you see this challenge?
Creationist stakes $10,000 on contest between Bible and evolution
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/25/creationist-trial-bible-genesis-evolution
He’s been giving that challenge for 20 years…it’s bogus. See Pharyngula for a full explanation.
5. The most recent common ancestor of both whales and spiders probably swam around in Ediacaran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ediacaran)
I will only tackle the first question:
The difference between humans and bobobo chimps (for example) is really not that great at all! All our characteristics are there in them and they do ‘speak’ to one another and can even learn to ‘speak’ to us too – with our sign language.
They have all our emotions and there is increasing evidence for a ‘morality’ too. They are acutely aware of what’s fair and what isn’t when one is favoured over another for example.
They hunt, they use tools, they have families like ours. They remember the faces of their human captors for years. They also suffer emotionally and even self medicate on leaves from bushes around when they have pain.
The point is, animals adapt to their surroundings and as bonobos never left the jungle they haven’t needed to ‘move on’. Our major divergence from them, I feel, came with the discovery of using fire, both for getting better nutrition from our food and for protection. If you ever came across a group of monkeys sitting round a fire they suddenly would seem just like us. Remember chimps often have a higher IQ than some humans.
100 years ago similar used to be said of some of our indigenous peoples in some of the balmier countries of the world. They have also not had to ‘move on’ to a western way of living. Perfectly adapted to their surroundings they didn’t need to farm or struggle to make a living. In their paradise worlds everything was there ready for them. Some called them lazy or ‘primitive’ because they didn’t follow our ethics, but they never needed to.
The more we learn about animals, the closer we realise they are to us and the more we have to leave the teachings of the bible with all its inferences about the superiority of man over beast, behind.
Nitpick from a linguistics major:
Even if we accept that chimps can use “language” (and I do), their ability to do so seems to max out at about the ability of a four or five year old human child. But that still supports your case – the difference is one of degree, not kind.
To nitpick further, their linguistic ability is based on our limited comprehension of their language. We are not fluent in it, and so we judge their abilities with no more likelihood of accuracy than you would watching a film of someone doing something you don’t understand while speaking a language you don’t understand.
Look at it this way: we don’t always know if the art from Aztec/Mayan/Incan cultures are decorative, abstract, religious, historical, political, farce, comedy, insulting, scientific, or something else — and they were humans!
It is only arrogance to claim that their language is simplistic, has no subtlety, only goes to the most basic levels. We do not know if their communication modes include posture, scent, subsonics (like elephants, for instance), or other things we haven’t discovered. There is no rosetta stone or interpreter at this time.
Was “like elephants” supposed to be a link?
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That has never been true of any known human society. That does not change the jist of what you were getting at, but. Why perpetuate the noble savage myth, especially when it is not even necessary that it be true to make your point?
“1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?”
By what standard? It should be pointed out that we share about 50% of our DNA (IIRC) with bananas.
My goodness, no wonder they fit into our hands so perfectly!
+1 (and sub)
So…comfortably, one might say.
Ha Ha Ha!
1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
Because our last common ancestor was millions of years ago, so there has been lots of time for divergent evolution since then.
2) why can’t we find another two species with common ancestry that manifest such a gap in their evolution?
We can. All species have common ancestry.
3) why are we the only ones to to develop speech?
I don’t think we know for sure, but it’s presumably related to our unique capacities for language and intelligence. Other animals certainly have the ability to communicate.
4) will goats, for example, ever talk if given enough time?
Possibly, but I doubt it.
5) when did the spider and the whale departed in evolution?
Hard to say with accuracy, but hundreds of millions of years ago at least.
I think it helps to consider niches when answering all these question. If chimps were more like humans , it wouldn’t necessarily make them better at being chimps. Goats probably won’t evolve to be able to talk because they do not need to talk to occupy their goat niche (although goats are possibly a bad example because they’ve been artificially selected by humans for quite a while).
I wonder if Andrew Brown would claim that it’s because of atheists that some Orthodox Jews reject evolution.
Not atheists. Strident atheists. Dawkinsites.
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“5) when did the spider and the whale departed in evolution?”
“the spider” and “the whale”? which spider, the black widow or the jumping spider or the tarantula or the…? which whale? blue? minke? humpback? killer?
anyway, it’s on the order of 782.7 million years ago. http://www.timetree.org.
These might be serious questions, but they are also lazy, misinformed questions borne of misunderstanding and incorrect assumptions.
What does this have to do with anything? The common ancestor is so far back that he could have asked for the common ancestor between mammals and spiders and get the same answer. No need to be petty.
I was going to post that, but then I spent 20 minutes clicking on that site and forgot to.
My point being he doesn’t even understand enough to ask a coherent question, which means he hasn’t attempted to answer the questions on his own. Why not read Dr. Coyne’s book to start, instead of emailing him?
Except he asked a good question because it’s irrelevant what type of spider it is.
It is a coherent question. Even JAC refers to “whales” as a group without getting flack from nitpickers complaining that he didn’t list species names. You’re just hating on him when we’ve been asked to show some courtesy.
Yes, “whales” are a group. So are “spiders”. However, “the spider” and “the whale” are not. I’ll give you that maybe there’s a language barrier I didn’t allow for, but I criticized his questions and his lack of due diligence. That’s not discourtesy. I didn’t call him names.
I don’t think you understand what discourtesy is.
(if it helps, this reply is discourteous)
Actually, it’s not discourteous. It’s disagreement. By your seeming standard, any criticism is discourtesy. That makes you a tone troll.
Given that the point of the thread is to courteous, that makes you a “didn’t read the op troll”.
But you’d get the same answer no matter which arachnid you chose or which vertebrate you chose– the answer is the same… and once you get to the most recent common anscestor, all the ancestors are identical back in time. All whale ancestry leads back to the last common ancestor of whales… and all spider ancestry leads back to the last common ancestor of spiders… and their ancestry leads back to the ancestry of an animal with segmented parts, a mouth, and an anus which was probably worm-like and gave rise to all clades having those characteristics.
His questions may or may not have been sincere, but yours were definitly not sincere because they do not matter in regards to the answer.
It is _not_ a valid question. It is a trolling question, just as the search for a ‘crocoduck’ fossil is ignorance parading as sarcasm of science. The obvious intent was to make fun of the idea that a whale and a spider could have common ‘parents.’ That nobody ever suggested such a thing is a perfectly valid point. These questions do not deserve earnest replies.
Ooh, that’s a nice site. I sat around for a while figuring out which superphylum they were in and that obviously didn’t work very well.
It’s not the discourtesy that makes the question about what whale or spider or problem. I’ll beat a dead horse here, but it must not be allowed to have the slightest chance of living. All spiders have a common ancestor and all whales have a common ancestor. Someone could ask me when I diverged from my cousins, but it would be just as coherent to ask when me and my siblings diverged from my cousins, it’s the same for both because the answer to both questions is my grandparents. All whales and all spiders diverged from each other at the same time as any individual whale with any individual spider.
1. The genetic gaps between us aren’t that great. We’re very similar indeed, but the main difference between us is culture and that isn’t biological. We have a hundred thousand years of accumulated learning that we pass on. Genes allowed us to develop culture, but after that it was an entirely different replicator – memes – that gave us email and rocket ships and snooker.
2. If we take this to mean a similar degree of relatedness then we’re looking at species separated by 4-8m years. I think this is the heart of what we’re being asked and I don’t have the zoological knowledge to answer it properly.
3. We aren’t the only creatures to develop speech. We don’t have the most sophisticated speech either – that would presumably be songbirds or maybe whales.
4. Goats arguably have a form of speech. They bleat and the bleats have informational content. This question assumes teleology – that there’s a pinnacle of evolution, and that speech is part of it. But evolution doesn’t plan ahead, it is entirely blind. There would need to be a reproductive advantage to more refined goat speech and goats aren’t under that evolutionary pressure at the moment.
5. Again, not my area of expertise but I would say spiders belong to Arthropada and humans to Chordata which means the common ancestor was a Cambrian era fish.
Oops, I misread the last point – it should be whale and spider, not human and spider. It’s the same common ancestor though, of course.
It’s more of a worm than a fish… fish have backbones… you have to go back further than the first creature with a backbone to get to the most recent common ancestor of a spider (arthropod) and whale (chordate)– it’s pre-fish and after the evolution of sponges.
RE: 4 – if we say that culture is our extended phenotype then the difference between ours and ape’s is indeed pretty large. But it’s not a genetic difference, it’s a memetic difference.
There aren’t any fish in the ancestral lineage of Phylum Arthropoda.
+1
“…prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Israels’ most influential philosopher and an Orthodox Jew himself, for whom the word scientist would be a degrading understatement”
From my perspective, there are really only two kinds of scientists, good ones and poor ones. The fact that you feel Prof. Leibowitz is so super-duper-duper that the very word scientist would be degrading him seems to indicate a HUGE amount of Authority Worship on your part. Arguments from Authority are a pretty lousy way to support your views.
“We in Judaism don’t seek proof for our beliefs nor we try to settle them with what science finds to be true.”
There is so much wrong here. How should a logical person anchored in reality respond to such an unfortunate statement?
“For me, religion and science are two distinct fields that shouldn’t be measured by the same criteria…”
Correct. Religion is based on faith, which is belief that is not connected to reality at a meaningful level.
“…for whom the word scientist would be a degrading understatement.”
This is a telling and unfortunate way for an adult to refer to others. Are you saying Jerry Coyne is on a lower rung compared to Leibowitz??
1) Akin to asking why the number three is written 3 and not 2.
2) Sure we can. I defer to Professor Coyne and other experts for a few examples.
3) Other species communicate with sound.
4) Can’t say for sure. I don’t believe an answer to this question will help you very much in any way.
5) They may or may not have a common ancestor. This does not have any negative impact on the reality of “evolution by natural selection.”
RE: 5 – Every creature that has ever lived has a common ancestor. So far as we know.
Yep: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=universal-common-ancestor
This is incorrect on a fundamental level. Common descent is one of the cornerstones of evolution by natural selection. I recommend watching one of Dr. Coyne’s lectures or reading his book.
All life forms have a common ancestor, as noted by Andrew. Every single living thing is linked by common ancestry. You and any random bacterium (or bird or bovine or boa or bream) are linkned by a common ancestor.
I can highly recommend both Dr. Coyne’s excellent book (I’ve read it 3 times so far) and Dr. Dawkins’ excellent books, especially, on this point: The Ancestor’s Tale.
Although the ancestor’s tail is a bit long. 😉
Your “friend” has the typical ignorant bias that humans are “superior” to apes — but only by looking at those areas in which humans tend to be superior (technology, etc.).
Look at it from a different perspective: apes are almost always stronger than humansapes almost always have keener sense of smell than humansapes do not commit genocide because their imaginary deity tells them to
Clearly, this makes them superior in those areas than humans.
Humans are much more intelligent than apes, have much greater control over their environment, and are much better able to satisfy their needs and desires. Sounds superior to me.
How do you define “intelligent”? (We have evidence of primates out-performing humans on certain video games, for instance.)
How do you know apes are not satisfying their needs and desires?
If apes are not interested in “controlling their environment” how do you know they do not have greater control?
Your post sounds like sophistry to me.
How do you define “intelligent”?
I don’t think there is a single, comprehensive definition. But it would include, for example, a broad ability to solve problems.
How do you know apes are not satisfying their needs and desires?
Because their lives (in the wild) are nasty, brutish and short.
Your post sounds like sophistry to me.
Your post sounds like ignorance to me.
And bacteria are superior to both. Cockroaches might be as well, or even rats.
And bacteria are superior to both. Cockroaches might be as well, or even rats.
Why do you think the fact that there are more bacteria and roaches and rats means that those creatures are superior to humans?
Well, they’re certainly superior in reproducing, no? The point is that “superior” is a meaningless notion if it is unqualified — “superior” on what metric? Whales are bigger than humans, cheetahs can run faster, rattlesnakes are more poisonous, jellyfish are softer, shrews are smaller, etc. etc. etc. In each of these cases the organism is literally “superior” to humans in some way.
So before you go talking about humans being “superior”, you have to say superior in what. Then, once that’s explicit, we can debate whether that quality is important/defining/objective.
The point is that “superior” is a meaningless notion if it is unqualified
Humans are superior to apes in the ways I listed. I suspect most people would consider those kinds of superiority to matter more than the sense of smell (cited by gr8hands), or the sheer number of organisms (cited by you and truthspeaker).
And I suspect that most dogs would consider scent acuity superiority to matter more. And dolphins would consider swimming superiority to matter more. “Superiority” is relative to a specific metric.
And I suspect that most dogs would consider scent acuity superiority to matter more. And dolphins would consider swimming superiority to matter more. “Superiority” is relative to a specific metric.
I doubt that either dogs or dolphins understand the concepts of intelligence and superiority and “ability to satisfy one’s needs and desires” well enough (if at all) to even be able to make such a comparison. But why would it matter, anyway? We’re talking about our understanding of superiority here, not theirs. Do YOU think that dogs’ superior sense of smell is more important than our superior ability to meet our needs and desires (food, shelter, medicine, and all the other benefits our intelligence and technology have provided)?
So, in other words, “humans are best at the stuff humans care about.” OK, but that is precisely what one would expect from evolution. The rabbi was implying an objective standard for superiority, not one relative to each species’ environment. The point that various people have been making here is that there is no objective assessment of “superiority” independent of a specific metric, and there is no way to establish such metric objectively. It’s all about what qualities you value, and issues of value are in the end not objective.
So, in other words, “humans are best at the stuff humans care about.”
No, I think apes also care about satisfying their needs and desires. I think they care about it a lot, just as we do. But we’re much better at it than they are.
The rabbi was implying an objective standard for superiority,
The rabbi didn’t say anything about superiority. That’s from gr8hands.
The point that various people have been making here is that there is no objective assessment of “superiority” independent of a specific metric, and there is no way to establish such metric objectively.
Yes, you keep saying this. But so what?
It all depends on how you define “superior”, which is the point I was trying to illustrate. The criteria you used to assert that humans are superior to chimps are every bit as arbitrary as the ones I used to assert that bacteria are superior to humans.
It all depends on how you define “superior”, which is the point I was trying to illustrate. The criteria you used to assert that humans are superior to chimps are every bit as arbitrary as the ones I used to assert that bacteria are superior to humans.
Then any claim that anything is superior to anything else is “arbitrary.” The claim the democracy is superior to fascism is “arbitrary.” The claim that peace is superior to war is “arbitrary.” The claim that happiness is superior to sadness is “arbitrary.” What’s wrong with saying any of these things, or saying that humans are superior to apes and bacteria?
There are far more bacteria on the planet than humans. They inhabit many environments that would kill humans, even with our technology (e.g., a few miles beneath the earth’s crust). They are far more adaptable that humans. They have probably already travelled into deep outer space farther than humans have (on our own probes). Why aren’t they “superior” to humans?
Or, as my dog would say, “Geez, humans can’t even tell their own poop from someone else’s by smell — what idiots!”
Or,as Douglas Adams wrote:
“Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
You’re aware that Adams was a humorist, right?
You’re aware that the best humour makes a serious point, right?
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No, oftentimes the best humor is just a joke, as in this case.
Perhaps you really don’t understand Adams’s humour then.
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Adams was definitely driving at a serious point with that line.
What serious point?
I’m certainly now aware that you’re humourless…
There are far more bacteria on the planet than humans. They inhabit many environments that would kill humans, even with our technology (e.g., a few miles beneath the earth’s crust).
Again, so what? Why does that mean they’re superior?
They are far more adaptable that humans.
That’s certainly not true.
Bacteria as a group are inarguably more adaptable than humans. Do any humans live inside other animals? Live at temperatures close to boiling, or close to freezing? Endure acids? Survive naked to outer space? Live kilometres deep in the earth’s crust?
Surely you must grant that bacteria inhabit a vastly wider range of environments that humans can.
The relevant definition of adaptable would seem to be “able to adjust to new conditions.”
The fact that bacteria live in a much wider range of environments than human beings does not mean bacteria are more adaptable. Each species of bacteria has evolved to live in a particular environment. If you change its environment significantly, it is not likely to survive. Human beings, in contrast, can adapt to a huge range of environments through the use of technology.
Equivocation error.
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Whatever that’s supposed to mean.
There are far more bacteria in our bodies than there are human cells. (IIRC.)
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There are far more sets of human chromosomes in the world than of all the great apes combined.
On the score of survival, we stand superior (now, long term, not so sure.)
We’ve also been a great boon to other species: Chickens, swine, cattle, ducks, cabbages, wheat, barley, corn …
I wrote him back several times, trying to ascertain if he was simply trying to waste my time by giving me “stumpers” …
These aren’t good questions. They show a lack of knowledge, not just of conviction.
I wish people would read the title of Darwin’s book: “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.” It’s very clever.
Natural Selection: Like most people in England, Darwin knew that farmers were using artificial selection to get varieties or breeds of various species. However most people believed there was an ‘epoch’ point, back 6,000 years before (based on a silly calculation) and that everything started from that point. Darwin realized that there was no epoch, that the variations went back to the beginning of life.
Preservation of Favoured Races: (Races then meaning “varieties or breeds” which now applies to humans only). Darwin understood that our children are like us, but not exact copies, and that the pressures of life selected out survival characteristics and ‘favored’ them. He saw that this was the same for all species, all members.
As for ‘gaps’, even if no species left traces of its existence so there were no fossils, that would not invalidate evolution. It would just be harder to understand.
Speech: We don’t know the levels of communication of other species. Yes, humans are freaky apes, but what does that prove? AFAIK we are the only beings that routinely tries to save the life of other species. Why not ask about that? We are also the only beings that exploit so many other other species. Freaky indeed. He fails to understand that evolution is not directed, it is opportunistic.
As for spiders and whales, I point him to bacteria, viruses and ring species. Evolution, proved by observation.
#5: the most recent common ancestor of whales and spiders (any kind) was the Urbilaterian, a population of worms that lived somewhere between 550 million and 1 billion years ago. Direct fossil evidence suggests younger dates, extrapolations from genetic differences point to older ones. A long time either way.
The exact same population was also the most recent common ancestor of, say, crocodiles and tapeworms, or starfish and cephalopods.
And at the time of divergence, there were neither spiders nor whales, but Urbilaterian a. and Urbilaterian b.
yep. Two populations of pretty much indistinguishable, probably microscopic worms. Direct descendants of the first multicellular organisms to specialize successfully in moving around.
Used to be, they said “Animals don’t use tools” and that was What Made Us Different Then it was, “They don’t have language,” “They aren’t aggressive.” etc. Those were proven wrong, too.
Personally, I think it would be more productive if Orthodox Jew (or anyone, really) would state specifically what HE thinks makes human “different” from primates. I think what he’s looking for is What Makes Us Better.
Excellent points! It’s been our arrogance at saying that only “we” do something, when it turns out it’s common elsewhere.
So far as we know, only humans kill other humans because of religion.
Apes and chimpanzees definitely kill each other for belonging to the other tribe though, and that’s very close to the same thing.
Only humans have invented the chocolate easter egg. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable question from the guy.
That’s because they can’t agree on which invisible sky things to worship.
If religion was true, we’d know it. Nobody takes their kids to a class weekly to teach them about gravity.
I think the current differences are considered something like:
a) humans have a mentoring way of learning, i.e. a specific learning trait where we show the technique and interact with the pupil.
b) we look better.
If there are more, I would be happy to know them. And I don’t expect a) will stand for long, no other difference has.
a) pretty sure that primates have been observed teaching their young.
b) there are some pretty handsome primates out there as opposed to some pretty ugly humans…
Uh, we’re primates too…
Yes, I do realize that.. but, they are those who think that is just Wrong On So Many Levels. 😀
I’m a primate who can attest to having done this myself.
In the eyes of a bonobo, the difference between a human and gorilla is 1000 times greater than the difference between itself and a gorilla
Just wondering how we know that.
It’s a metaphor.
But how do you know THIS one is a metaphor and THAT one isn’t?!
I think that’s misleading, you’re making an assumption about how bonobos perceive the world. From a bonobo’s perspective humans are genetically closer than gorillas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolutionary_genetics
To chime in on the original questions : Jim Jones has the best answer (IMHO).
Mike.
It was a metaphor, and I think I got it backwards. It was a crude example of character displacement (which is usually based on proximity but has been shown can apply to the mere recency of species differentiation.)
I was trying to say, a bonobo sees the difference between itself and any other primate as great as we do. We, at first, see the similarities between chimps and gorillas, and see the gvas differences between us and chimps or gorillas. Of course that’s how it is, so we aren’t inclined to waste time on “Operation Woo the Bonobo”
“vast” as opposed to “gvas”…I have a mental illness
Ah, got it. Thanks.
Surely you mean “less”? To you, one bonobo is much like another and one gorilla is much like another, whereas you readily differentiate between lots of individual humans. Won’t bonobos see humans and gorillas as individually uninteresting, but bonobos as individuals?
Just want to highlight that the common ancestor between a spider and a whale is sometime around the Cambrian explosion (which is about 550 million years ago) and probably even before that when most of the main animal body plans we see today were establishes. btw if anyone wants to check the estimated last common ancestor between any two species check out the timetree.org website.
1. Physically apes are generally superior to humans, ie. most adult chimps are stronger than adult humans, and we won’t even discuss gorillas. For some skills, apes are mentally superior to humans, but this relates to skills needed for their environment. Humans have a greater vocal range than apes, leading to what we would class as superior communication. It is really only our technological society that distinguishes us. Random apes released in our ‘world’ would probably find it easier to survive than random people in theirs. So on the whole our abilities aren’t that different. We have a larger brain, but that is only an advantage in certain environments.
2. I infer from the question that you would like two species that are 95-98% genetically identical whose abilities differ to the same degree as humans. As I indicated in #1, that difference is not that great, so I suggest that the dodo (a flightless bird) and its flying cousin the pigeon would be a good example, or squirrels vs. flying squirrels, trapdoor vs aquatic spiders, tree frogs vs. non-tree frogs, etc.
3. Many animals have the ability to communicate. It is merely human hubris that suggests our method is superior. Birds, dolphins, apes and monkeys all have vocalizations they use to communicate, and I assume their methods are quite satisfactory to them. Our speech may be more complex because we need to communicate more complex ideas.
4. They can communicate, but if you mean by some kind of recognizable human-like speech, then that would take a lot of selection. As previously noted, we probably wouldn’t call them ‘goats’ after that length of time and evolution.
5. Answered by previous posts.
I’m not sure your statement about the relative vocal ranges in #1 is accurate.
For anyone who wants to see how long ago the last common ancestor was between any two species I recommend checking out the timetree.org website.
4. If goats learn to speak am sure we will not be around to witness, they may not be goats then.
3. they speak but not in our language. Don’t compare everything with what we do, you will be biased and think yourself superior to the ant whereas the ant has a fortress so ambient it doesn’t need air conditioning
5. it is so long ago I can’t count
Your questions remind me of the game of school, one now changing in the U. S., i.e., the teacher is the sage on the stage. The slow shift is for the teacher to become a guide on the side.
My strong recommendation is that you begin with Professor Coyne’s book so that you get a general sense of evolutionary biology and how evolutionary biologists go about their research, THEN pursue some of the other questions on your own by looking at, where and when necessary (and it will be necessary) journal articles and/or books on deeper technical and puzzling questions. But you have got to do some of the lifting, the work that understanding of anything requires of learners.
I recently read a book titled “Evolutionary Agriculture” and the author in his chapter on basic evolution recommended Dr. Coyne’s book (he took a paragraph to do that since much of the discussion following on evolution had been informed by Professor Coyne’s book.)
And this is where the sage on the stage comes in. Once you are grounded and at home with some basic ideas, Professor Coyne or others here may want to answer questions that are based on what you understand or perhaps misunderstand (We all come to learning with misconceptions and some of them are quite resistant to change. We don’t give up easily!) You may find similar help in Israel. I’m not sure that Professor Coyne wants to turn WEIT into an evolutionary biology tutorial though.
If I had a vote it would be “no” but I don’t or do I want one, I’m merely happy to be here and enjoy and learn from forays into all kinds of territory: cats/kittehs, art, food, travel, the origin of morality, free will or as it turns out now so free will, etc.
I’d also look into a phenomenon that is becoming worldwide: MOOCs, Massive Online Open Courses which are free but so far one cannot receive credit but it puts the burden of learning on the shoulders of the students but faciliated by talented and gifted lecturers. If my memory serves me well one of Professor Coyne’s former students offered a course last year (?) along this line, call it “Evolutionary Biology 101.”
I wish you well and assure you that you will have a wonderful journey reasoning your way into understanding. It will make you appreciate Darwin’s close about the view from his tangled bank. It is glorious.
IMHO, the overarching key to understanding evolution, that writer OJ in Israel cannot grasp, are the large numbers. How many generations in a million years? Well, if it’s some virus, or even drosophila, the numbers are staggering. Nowhere in the Torah, or any…any…religious texts, do you find numbers like “a million” or, even “zero”. Numbers are not science, but no scientific explanations make sense without large numbers, somewhere, backing them up.
Between a spider and a whale, there are billions (more than one billion) of years of evolution going in disparate directions. Billions of generations, taken together. And, what is “a billion”? A thousand million. This is a number that is used all the time in totaling up national budgets, corporate sales …heck, there are even “billionaires” among us. But it is a value impossible to really understand, to “feel” its value. Understanding evolution is not about getting a feedback “feel” like you get from religious texts, which are all on the personal level. To understand large numbers, it would do no good, say, to go to one of the Egyptian pyramids and push on an immovable block, and say, “Now, imagine pushing like that, but multiply that force by a thousand, and then times ten thousand blocks..” ..you simply won’t get a personal understanding of how the pyramids were built.
But, here is the important part. Lack of comprehension DOES NOT equate to “not a fact”. As that businessman WRONGLY sez in WEIT (Jerry’s book page 221)..”I found your evidence for evolution very convincing–but I still don’t believe it.” Here is exactly the case we are talking about with writer OJ in Israel: OJ won’t believe it, because he doesn’t get “the feel” like he gets with other “truths” in his life. And the reason is, you’ll =never= get “the feel”. Large numbers do NOT, ever, give you “the feel”. But, the evidence for evolution ONLY WORKS with large numbers.
These questions suggest a deep skepticism about evolution on the part of the correspondent. If only he were as skeptical about his religious beliefs…
I enjoyed your response!
I agree that the differences between humans and other apes can be interesting – especially when it comes to the ability to reason and weigh evidence. Ironically, it is religious people that remind me of our ape heritage with their need to assign agency where there is none, their blind mimicking of elders, and their tendency to throw poo.
I like your resply…
“3) why are we the only ones to to develop speech?”
lol. This is just as silly as what you get from Christian and Muslim creationists.
It’s equivalent to saying why bats are the only mammals to develop true flight?
wtf. haha
And now that his questions have been answered, I have some for him….
1. The Torah begins with the words “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Science tells us that the Earth was not formed until 8 billion years AFTER the Big Bang. How can you base your claim of scientific knowledge on a book that is objectively wrong 10 words in?
2. Did the talking snake have legs or not?
3. How did the snake talk, since snakes have no voice boxes, no lips to form words, and no ears?
4. If God confused men with different languages so they wouldn’t build a tower to reach heaven, why haven’t our airplanes and space ships bumped into it yet?
5. How did koalas get to the ark?
“How did koalas get to the ark”
No problem, they were living next door to Noah at the time. The real question is how did they get to Australia? Both of them?? Without succumbing to predators??? And why????
Mike.
It really is the mark of a primitive people who think all of the animal species on the planet are within walking distance of their hut, isn’t it?
And, Mike, how did the aboriginal people in Australia have “morality” without Judeo-Christian teaching? They should have annihilated one another, because, you know, without the threat of Hell, they would simply kill everything!!!
California Indians had some of the lowest rates of inter-tribal warfare known, which has been of interest to anthropologists since the 19th century. The following was a typical “religion”:
“The elaborate ritual life of these tribes featured a World Renewal ceremony held each Fall in the largest villages. Sponsored by the wealthiest men in the communities, the ceremony’s purpose was to prevent future natural catastrophes such as earthquakes, floods or failure of acorn crop or a poor salmon run. Supplication to supernatural spirits. Because such disasters directly threaten the community, great attention to detail and the utmost solemnity accompanied such ceremonies. This and other traditional rituals continue to be practiced, despite the grinding poverty that plagues many of these groups.”
http://www.nahc.ca.gov/califindian.html
When droughts and plagues did happen, they blamed it on the previous ceremony. Too imperfect. And, they moved on.
Where’s the Savior? Where’s the Prophets??
“so they wouldn’t build a tower to reach heaven,…”???
Really? It says that in the Old Testament?
Now, THAT should be enough to crush ANY credibility for even the average person.
It’s the story of the tower of Babel. Genesis 11:1-8.
God must hate simultaneous translators.
Thanks! Fun stuff.
I know these stories (Tower of Babel) in general, but not the specifics. As usual, “the devil is in the details..”
It really amazes me how much the early parts of the Bible read like the “Just-So” stories of Rudyard Kipling. “And that, children, is why other tribes don’t talk like ours.”
Oh yes, totally.
I have to give the writer of the GoE tale a lot of credit. In it, he explains quite a number of things:
1. Why women are subservient to men.
2. Why women apparently have a more-difficult labor and delivery process than other animals.
3. Why humans are more intelligent than other creatures.
4. Why humans need to “toil in the fields” instead of just living off the land, like the other animals do.
5. Why humans wear clothing.
6. Why snakes crawl on their bellies.
It’s the mother of all “just so” stories.
Um… the Father?
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God must be pissed that we walked on the moon.
1903 First powered flight.
1969 First moon walk.
What sort of ‘god’ wouldn’t be impressed all to hell with that? 66 years!
Then we ran out of money… should’ve walked on Mars and (maybe) by now.
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Or our enemy did.
?
Meaning, there’s no longer a space race, I imagine.
Oh… I certainly didn’t mean “we” to denote only USians.
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Yes. Had the Soviets gone on to the moon, we’d have gone on to mars. Money be damned. With mere science and adventure to motivate us, not so much.
Sorry to be so parochial. Indeed, getting to the moon was an accomplishment for humans, any way you look at it. It is a mere accident of history that the means and specific motivation fell to the U.S. and Soviets.
* (maybe) Titan by now.
ISTM that even the most devout Orthodox Jew (and all Christians as well) must understand that even if the scriptures are divinely inspired, they were written for the understanding of the people of the day.
Thus a reference to “the four corners of the Earth” in accord with the usual understanding then that the Earth was flat, though savants and mariners knew perfectly well otherwise. (Remember, these scriptures were written for tribes of desert-dwelling herdsmen hardly past the Stone Age.)
Yet everyone today knows perfectly well that the Earth is spherical, including the devout, and accepts this fact without cavil and without thinking it in some way lessens the significance of scripture.
When it comes to biology and the origins of life, the scriptures offer an explanation suitable to the understanding of those same desert-dwelling herdsmen. But just as human knowledge has progressed regarding the figure of the earth, so it has progressed regarding the origins of life. Hence evolution.
None of this prevents a devout Jew from celebrating various religious festivals in memory of their distant forbears and their tribulations: hence (among others) Passover and its prohibitions on eating this and that. But does anyone think the Most Holy One really gives a rats ass if someone eats wheat on Passover? As an ever merciful father, He is sure to know that His children make mistakes from time to time, and if their hearts are in the right place, He overlooks those mistakes.
Please understand: I am not a believer in any way, shape, or form, but have tried to phrase this discussion in terms respectful of the questioner’s religious beliefs.
I find this excuse that this god could only and would only write for the people of the day to be rather ridiculous. This would indicate that this omni-umpty-ump being was incapble of educating its believers. All of the sudden it cannot make clear things like the germ theory of disease, how gravity works, etc, when it supposedly can magic up anything it wants. The scriptures do not offer up a “suitable” explanation when they are simply wrong with most, if not all of what they claim, like oh menstruating women are all icky.
And evidently this being does give a “rat’s ass” what people ate since that’s what it supposedly “inspired”. As for it being an “ever merciful father”, that’s a load of horse poop to anyone who has ever actually read the bible/torah, etc. There is nothing that gives an exception for not following the supposedly god given rules.
I will give it a go….
1: A:Perhaps our abilities are not that far off. Physical changes to our bodies and brains have made us different species. An ape is doing his best to use tools like twigs to extract termites from a mound. Humans are doing better using a screwdriver, building the LHC etc. A higher functioning brain allows higher function. If a human had an ape brain, back to the termite mound they go. Everyone is kinda doing their best with what they have to work with.
B: Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes and other great apes have 24 pairs of chromosomes. One theory is that the fusing of 2 of our chromosomes caused a genetic weakening of our jaw muscles, allowing bigger craniums to evolve in humans. Bigger heads, bigger brains, better chance to pass the genes on…
2: A manatee might be a good example, others include mammals that live in water. eg whales. Mammals that live in water are closer to land biased mammals than the fish that share their aquatic habitat.
3: Complex speech. Many animals have the ability to communicate on a rudimentary level. I grew up on a cattle farm. Momma cow would call out to her calf, vice versa. I would not call it complex speech. My dog can tell the difference in a warning bark from other hounds, she also can tell if the bark is a playful bark. I came to those conclusions from observation. No double blind testing. I hang my hat on it none the less. Our ability to regulate breathing could have played a big part in the evolution of complex speech in humans. Not many other animals have this ability. Aquatic mammals have some interesting “speech” abilities. Maybe related to the ability to regulate breathing.
4:Would think that if a goat could talk, it wouldn’t be a goat. Brain needs to change, breathing abilities need to change. So if goats did evolve over the next few million years to speaking animals, it would not be a goat. Goats are herd animals. The genes that would facilitate speech would need to give “mutant goat zero” an advantage over the other goats. Zero would then pass those genes on.
5: Spider and whale huh… Go back farther and it could be whale and algae… There is a common ancestor between humans and spiders if you go back far enough. But that common ancestor would in no way look or act like a spider or a human. Just too far removed.
I really hope that JC (Jerry Coyne. NOT JESUS) will answer these questions personally! Would love to read a real scientist’s thoughts on these matters. I am just a layman
Several of the posters here are “real scientists.” 🙂
I’m a high school dropout. Should have used “professional”. I do however consider myself a scientist. I use the scientific method daily to solve problems. Good enough for me.
Maybe not bigger brains– but better organized brains: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/28/17502596-brain-size-didnt-drive-primate-evolution-research-suggests Once we evolved language, memes(culture) had a chance to evolve… and we keep evolving better and better information copiers and processors (writing, the printing press, digital data, the internet, satellite communication, and who knows where we will go from here)
Chimps definitely beat humans on this memory test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJAH4ZJBiN8 So, though we may be impressed with our abilities, I’m not sure any other creature is. If a bee was sentient enough to have an opinion on the topic, it might find us humans very stupid for not understanding the waggle dance.
I wonder how the letter writer explains the #2 chromosome fusion and the overwhelming gentic evidence of common descent– a trickster god?
These are not the sort of questions that one would ask if one wants to decide whether or not evolution is true. Some of the answers to these questions are not well known or are at present speculative.
If the question is whether evolution is true, the thing to do is read “Why Evolution Is True” or “Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters”,or any of a number of basic biology textbooks. If you then understand the evidence for evolution and the basic workings of natural selection, you can then appreciate the answers that one might give to the five questions.
sub
1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
I think the intention here is to ask “if human beings and apes share SUCH CLOSE common ancestry, WHY ARE THE ABILITIES OF HUMANS SO MUCH GREATER THAN CHIMPS?”
For the moment I’ll use the term “phenotype” instead of “abilities”. There are two implicit assumptions in the question. The first is that there is some regular, quantifiable relationship between phenotype and genetics. There isn’t. It is well known that very small genetical differences can sometimes have huge effects on phenotype through synergies, gene interactions, non-linear effects (e.g., chaos) and the like. So, the quick answer is that it’s perfectly reasonable to have two species which are very closely related, yet are quite different phenotypically.
On the second assumption and the word “abilities”, I agree with other posters above. Chimpanzees have many abilities that are superior to ours, as do other animals much more distantly related to us. If the OP doubts this, he should ask himself how he would survive if he were let loose in Chimp habitat to fend for himself.
BTW, thanks for the lead to timetree.org
Laymen answers:
1) Even the slightest difference in DNA can produce HUGE differences.
2) We do find evolutionary gaps between species that are that huge – arguably more – dinosaurs to birds?
3) We aren’t. Just because we don’t understand them – dolphins for instance – doesn’t mean they haven’t developed rather complex speech. Dolphins even have names. I’m pretty sure dolphins know more human words than vice versa.
4) Goats communicate with other goats just fine. It would stand to reason that any further complexity in their communication would be a result of the right selective pressures.
5) A hell of a long time ago. The more distantly related a modern species is, the further back in the evolutionary timeline one would have to go to find a common ancestor.
I meant: A layman’s answers:
1. 1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
While the phylogenic gap seems relatively substantial (although I don’t know that it’s SO great), the genetic gap is fairly small. That is because relatively few changes selecting for specialized survival/reproductive traits can result in significant physical and behavioral differences. What we view as a big gap requiring a massive bridge of some kind amounts to little more than an accumulated series of small steps at the DNA level. That’s the secret to large effects: the compound interest implicit in accumulated change. It’s why the earth is actually a spheroid, even though mile by mile, it might curve little or even not curve at all; it’s why there is a “gap” between Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French, despite having all started as Latin.
2) why can’t we find another two species with common ancestry that manifest such a gap in their evolution?
We don’t even have to compare two different species to find monumental gaps of a sort. Look at the sexual dimorphism (difference in body size and type between male and female of a species) in, say, anglerfish. This from Wikipedia: “Some species of anglerfish display extreme sexual dimorphism. Females are more typical in appearance to other fish, whereas the males are tiny rudimentary creatures with stunted digestive systems. A male must find a female and fuse with her: he then lives parasitically, becoming little more than a sperm-producing body.” Obviously the male and female must be very similar genetically to be able to reproduce, so relatively few alleles are responsible for very considerably different body types and behaviors. Again, see above—very small changes selected for over vast periods result in stunning end products. It seems more miraculous than it is because of the scale we live at.
3) why are we the only ones to to develop speech?
I mean, this might be glib, but A) we don’t really know specifically but B) it probably had some selective advantage, perhaps related to cooperation during hunts or gossiping about who was and was not trustworthy, and the like. But this is not really a question about evolution—is it? There are tons and tons of adaptations, some very bizarre (fish with clear heads and peacock spiders and the like show up all the time on this very website), and we could ask the same question about nearly every one of those adaptations. (To be fair, in the case of speech, an entire suite of adaptations.) Why do spiders make webs? Why do dolphins have blowholes? Why do some snakes have venom? Specific to speech it is of course a fascinating subject to research and speculate on, but the fact that we don’t have a magic bullet answer to that question does no damage to the fact and theory of evolution.
4) will goats, for example, ever talk if given enough time?
Naaaaah. At least not if “time” is the only additional consideration. Time plus selective pressure might result in a talking goat (but as several have averred, it would no longer be a goat in a recognizable sense, unless, pace Neil Shubin, you want to think of humans as merely “talking fish.”
5)when did the spider and the whale departed in evolution?
I saw the figure of 590 million years—and seems approximately correct. There are “most recent common ancestor” calculators that allow one to plug in any two organism and see an estimate for when they last shared a common ancestor. But perhaps more importantly, I am unsure of what lies behind this question. Is it a fair inference that there is something ridiculous about supposing that spiders and whales share a common ancestor at some distant point? But when we look at so many conserved aspects of their anatomy, physiology, and genes, it is trivial to deduce a common ancestor—at least the probability of one. A god who can create in any way whatever could surely create in such a way as to make two organisms appear related, but the level of commonality among all living things is explained without assuming divine design. It is in fact explained BETTER that way, because otherwise one must assume that it is among the creator’s most enduring goals to appear unnecessary.
Naaaaah.
+1,
Especially if read out loud to one’s spouse.
Indeed, if not to the probability of 1.
😉
Cute!
1) Many have already commented on this. I would like to add that the perceived gap between our species and our closest living relative is not so much because of our ‘differences’, but because EXTINCTION creates the appearance of gaps. Without extinction of all of the predecessors of chimps and all of the predecessors of humans we would not see any gap between us and chimps. We would instead see a very long lineage stretching back in time, like images of a mirror casting its own reflection. The time frame is about 7 million years and that is based on a consensus between genetic and fossil data. This ‘lineage’ between humans and chimps is not really a lineage in the sense that chimps evolved into humans, of course, but rather they are two diverging branches in a tree of life. We can also see numerous other branches containing images of other identical looking primates diverging away. These are branches of other species that separated from the two branches we happen to be following. They too will gradually start to change, but the majority will eventually die out. Moving along the branches that we are following, each image we pass is a representative of a single generation. We of course do not perceive any change between generations. Even when comparing individuals separated by a hundred thousand years we would be challenged to perceive any change at all, and this would be true even if we compared the two 100-millennial generations that bridge between the chimpanzee branch and the human branch.
With effort, and looking over longer stretches, we should see a gradual trend of increased robustness and transition to knuckle walking when looking in the direction of the chimpanzee. Looking in the direction of humans we would see gradual changes for upright walking. The legs would slowly get longer by millimeters, and the arms shorter, but this would take millions of years to become significant. As always, no ‘gaps’ are perceived. Surprisingly, there is no dramatic increase in brain size in our branch for several millions of years. Then, starting about 2 million years ago, the brain does start to slowly get larger, only approaching the size of our species maybe 200,000 years ago.
I am basing this imagery on the hard data of comparative genetics, and especially on the fossil record. The fossil record has gaps, but there is enough of it that we can be pretty confident that the scenario I describe above is at least a mostly correct scenario. Any errors in facts (and there may be some) will not significantly change the point that there are no gaps, except by those left open by extinction.
If all the other hominins were not extinct, the differences between apes and humans would not seem that extreme.
This is an important small fact that is often overlooked. Ninety-nine (and more) percent of all species that every existed, are extinct. The old creationist laugher, “So where are the half-chimp, half-humans?” should be best answered as, “They existed long ago, but they are all extinct, as are 99% of all ancestral forms of current life.”
1. Can you do this “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJAH4ZJBiN8”
2. Algae and giant redwood both are autotrophs that use sunlight to produce food…they look exactly the same?
3. Depends on what you mean by speech some cultures get by with very little amount of what we call speech because there is no need for more. Same is true with other animals and don’t even get me started on chemotaxis in plants!
4. Well I’ve seen enough goat videos on youtube to know that they may not talk but they are as good as many popstars today at singing
5. 782.7 Million Years Ago give or take a few million
“don’t seek proof for our beliefs nor we try to settle them with what science finds to be true.”
I might be wrong but I think this statement says it all. Asking for the answers whilst denouncing evidence and the Scientific method is such and odd way to think. If he really wants answers to his questions then he’d do well to at least understand how they’re found in Science as it’s our only method for finding anything of worth out and do some research and critical thinking as well as perhaps pursue a Scientific education. I really don’t like to do other people’s thinking and fact finding for them, they gain nothing from it.
I’ve just now read your post after making my own and it did give me pause about what I had said. I see we went different directions in translation for lack of a better way to say it. But I think I’m still willing to give some him some slack. I had imagined his stance on science is more about being less informed about what science and the method is given I don’t know he has been taught about it in the past. Perhaps your stance is the more prudent one to take, but here’s to hoping my overly optimistic approach helps.
I’d be all for optimism if I wasn’t such a skeptic. I’ve always found in teaching, if people don’t actively interact in the learning process it’s easier for them to dismiss what they’re told based on a priori “knowledge” but here’s hoping.
I was curious about queston 5 myself, so I did some inquiry. Knowing that spiders and whales belong not only to two different genera or families, but to two completely different lineages of higher animals (deuterostomes vs. protostomes), the question should be: “When did the deuterostomes and the protostomes departed in evolution”.
This is a question we can answer by means of the so called molecular clock method (for further information see wikipedia). Blair & Hedges (2005, http://www.hedgeslab.org/pubs/169.pdf) give an estimate of roughly 900 MYA ago, which is an unbelievably long timespan, not only to a creationist. Other estimates reach from 590 to 780 MYA in the past (Erwin & Davidson 2002, http://dev.biologists.org/content/129/13/3021.full). The thruth is somewhere in the middle.
To return to the question: Whales and spiders shared the last common ancestor between 590 and 900 MYA ago. Of course this ancestor resembled neither a whale nor a spider.
I enjoyed reading that post and your sources, thanks. Every bit of new knowledge gained adds to intellectual progress.
Subscribing.
#5
Spiders and whales are members of the two major groups of the Bilateria: the protostomes and deuterostomes, respectively. The Bilateria encompasses all the bilaterally symmetrical animals including us, fruitflies and worms, but excluding non-bilaterally symmetrical animals such as sponges and jellyfish. The bilaterian lineage diverged into its two major groups 700+/- million years ago. It’s probably not necessary for now to be much more precise than this. This common ancestor was likely much more similar to a modern worm in appearance than to a spider or whale. The great differences between a spider and whale you currently see are due to 700+/- million years of independent evolution.
Just out of curiosity, if you’re reading this, why did you choose spider and whale? The answer would be the same if you had substituted any worm, insect, nematode or mollusk (among many others) for spider, or any vertebrate, sea urchin, tunicate or starfish for whale.
I speculate, given the relative sizes and form, that this was an attempt to generate much hand and arm-waving on the part of evolution-backers….that we would descend into “just-so” stories and a series of provisional arguments, ending in “but no one really knows…”.
I think this was the hope of the writer in Israel.
Not fulfilled, but the hope was implied in the “toughness” (in the OJ writer’s mind) of the question.
Unfortunately, I often perceive a parallel when rationalists pose scientific questions that they think disprove God, when the answer is “with magic, anything’s possible.” Subvert any (or all) laws of physics? No problem!
OJ said …
“My apology if these questions seem extremely dumb.
I look forward for your answers.”
I won’t be making any attempt to answer the questions posed as I am not as qualified as others on this website. I would like say something to “OJ” concerning this quote.
Your questions do not “seem extremely dumb” at all. They merely indicate how educated you are on the subject and they seem to originate from a genuine curiosity. There is no apology required. If you are indeed as you appear in this post, your intellectual honesty and curiosity are to be applauded. To be open to new knowledge along with a willingness to learn is never the wrong position to hold. I hope some of the answers your receive here will help satisfy your curiosity. It has already been mentioned that finding a good book or two on the subject is highly recommended, of course Dr. Coyne’s book being one in particular. Perhaps other commenters on this website can recommend similar titles that would be equally accessible and appropriate for you.
Best wishes and good luck in all your endeavors.
“There are no stupid questions,
only stupid answers.
& that’s MY department.”
–Me, at various times
My suggestion would be for him to speak to a Reformed Rabbi who accepts evolution as fact… assuming he is serious in his query.
Speak to a heretic?!?!?!
Good one… but then aren’t we all?
I replied too quickly and flippantly. After thinking my response would be: If you mean heretic as in “holding another view”, I say, “Yes.” because every rabbi I know holds another view on many issues w.r.t. the Torah… they are all heretics, which is, however, a term I have only encountered within Christianity, not Judaism… but my experience is limited.
If human beings and bacteria share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
So I’m not a biologist, instead of trying those questions on, I note these elephants in the room:
If you know and acknowledge that religious stories aren’t even internally consistent, never mind consistent with facts, why cling to them no matter what?
Because they give you a fuzzy, warm feeling? That is reliably found in social relationships, food, training, enjoyments, and arts as well. No need to make up new, logically and factually dangerous, areas of fuzz.
Yes, yes, I know, it is tradition and considered moral. But one could have a different tradition, and morals are universal.
In as polite a way as I can make it: It is hugely offensive, and yes, degrading, to even suggest that the term scientist applies to philosophers.
Scientists devote all their efforts to uncover facts, and they succeed. Philosophers do nothing of this.
Please get your terms correct.
[blockquote]In as polite a way as I can make it: It is hugely offensive, and yes, degrading, to even suggest that the term scientist applies to philosophers.
Scientists devote all their efforts to uncover facts, and they succeed. Philosophers do nothing of this.
[/blockquote]
Thank you for saying that.
Oops, forgot I was no longer on a forum…
not []
Reading the whole thread, I now think there is a 3d elephant in the room:
As I understand the clade, humans _are_ apes:
“Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia. Apes are the largest primates and the orangutan, an ape, is the largest living arboreal animal. Hominoids are traditionally forest dwellers, although chimpanzees may range into savanna, and the extinct australopithecines were likely also savanna inhabitants, inferred from their morphology. Humans inhabit almost every terrestrial habitat.
Hominoidea contains two families of living (extant) species:
Hylobatidae consists of four genera and sixteen species of gibbon, including the lar gibbon and the siamang. They are commonly referred to as lesser apes.
Hominidae consists of orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and humans.[1][2]
Alternatively, the hominidae family are collectively described as the great apes.[3][4][5][6] There are two extant species in the orangutan genus (Pongo), two species in the gorilla genus, and a single extant species Homo sapiens in the human genus (Homo). Chimpanzees and bonobos are closely related to each other and they represent the two species in the genus Pan.”
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apes ]
So the question needs a clarification on this point, to say the least.
Yes, quite right.
Humans don’t share a common ancestry with apes, we ARE apes.
This is a very common creationist question, of course, and I think we’re all used to the shorthand, mentally inserting the word (other) prior to apes as a matter of course.
There is an anal hair to split here. I accept that our common ancestor with chimpanzees was (probably) hairy and (probably) adept at swinging through trees under branches, with long arms and long curved fingers and short thumbs, and prehensile feet, and was (probably) functionally tailless. To look at this ancestor any one of us would say that it was an ape. I would say it was an ape too, but many experts advise that the term ‘ape’ is supposed to be applied in a very strict sense and to them we are not supposed to say that we evolved from apes. The distinction is a very fine one, and rather trivial, really. I think that they say the term refers only to a particular kind of primate like those that we call the chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, and orangutans. Gibbons are called ‘lesser apes’. An ape is a robust primate that walks on their knuckles, and this requires some bony modifications in the wrist which is not seen in fossils of upright walking hominims. So we hominims appear to have never knuckle walked. So for that technical nit-picky reason (or for some other reason), the experts say we never descended from apes.
Splitting hairs or not, that’s an important point to recognize, because it’s just the sort of imagined ‘gotcha’ that creationists would glom onto thinking it disputes those evil evolutionists…
Also, ‘anal hair’ — yuck! 😀
Which touches on a peeve of mine. Whenever I see someone “correcting” the creationist claim that we came from apes or monkeys, I get seriously annoyed. We did come from apes. We still are apes. And we did come from monkeys. Apes are a special case of monkey. Moreover, if you looked at the common ancestor of all living apes, you’d call it an ape. And the common ancestor of all modern monkeys and apes would certainly be called a monkey.
We’re also primates that came from primates, mammals that came from mammals, animals that came from animals, and eukaryotes that came from eukaryotes. It gets a bit fuzzy after that.
I was just about to point out the elephant myself, but decided to skim the comments to see if someone beat me to it. I’m a bit surprised that it’s so far down the page.
You can’t classify chimpanzees (including Bonobos) as part of any group that doesn’t include humans, unless that group is simply both living species of chimpanzees.
Beyond that, question 5 completely contradicts the premise of question 2.
This person is far too ignorant of basic biological facts to reasonably hold any opinion about evolution.
The Spider and the Whale’s common ancestor is exactly the same common ancestor as the Spider and the Human. He needs to understand this point.
1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
To put it simply, the differences would be selective pressures and mutations accumulated along different lineages. If you want examples of the different selective pressures, see Coyne’s book for a good explanation for how they work.
2) why can’t we find another two species with common ancestry that manifest such a gap in their evolution?
It depends on which two species you’re talking about. Since you’ve asked about apes, it might not be a bad idea to go with superfamilies such as Hominoidea, or any of the higher taxons. As much as Coyne might dislike it by bringing in cephalopods, I like cuttlefish, and there is one interesting example of a different ability (assuming that is what you’re talking about based on the previous question). Metasepia pfefferi is the only known species of cuttlefish that produces a toxin in its muscles. Other species (uncertain of the percentage) do have neurotoxin produced by bacteria in their saliva. If you’re trying to deter something from eating you, most cuttlefish and M. pferreri take different approaches. Most that you’ll read about will attempt to camouflage their bodies, blending into their environment almost perfectly (for a demonstration of this, see Nova: Kings of Camouflage http://video.pbs.org/video/1150618835/).
However, if you’re asking about the gaps in the fossil record, the thing to remember is that its not entirely perfect. Not every organism becomes fossilized, some species don’t fossilize very easily due to differences of their skeleton or a lack of hard tissue (ex: bone), and even where they die plays a role in if they’ll be fossilized.
3) why are we the only ones to to develop speech?
We’re the only extant species with vocal communications that we can understand, in much the same way that felids are the only species with vocalizations that they recognize, and species of birds are the only ones able to recognize the meaning behind their own songs. However, we have managed to develop at least a basic understanding of what some of them mean. For instance, mating calls of birds can be recognized.
4) will goats, for example, ever talk if given enough time?
In a manner that we can recognize and understand as a language that we’ve developed? Hypothetically, through the use of artificial selection, and with an understanding of the neurology and other factors that play a role in speech (vocal cords, type of breathing, etc), it could be done. There isn’t anything I’m aware of that would prevent it. However, they also have their own vocalizations, and doesn’t seem likely to develop speech in a manner that we can recognize and understand as a language developed by human beings if left to their own.
5) when did the spider and the whale departed in evolution?
It would seem fairly to be early. Both are bilatera (http://tolweb.org/Bilateria/2459), meaning that they’re bilaterally symmetrical. However, the appearance of vertebrates (all whales are vertebates) in the Cambrian such as Pikaia and Haikouichthys, would indicate that it happened prior to the Cambrian, so over 500 million years ago at the very least.
If Mr. [name redacted] is serious about this and really wants to know more , I think the best thing he can do is to read, read, read and then read some more about evolution … If on the other hand Mr [name redacted] is doing this just to look for flaws in the evidence for evolution then the best thing he can do is to trully know the enemy and read , read , read and then read some more about evolution… In any case Jerry’s book is the starting point.
“if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?”
If you were an alien space explorer and came to Earth about 50,000 years ago, you would not have asked that question. You would have seen Cro-Magnons (early modern humans) and Neanderthals, a different species or at least sub species. They both would have had similar abilities – language, the use of tools, etc. It is not known for sure whey Neanderthals went extinct but the leading theory is that it was due to humans, either indirectly through competition or directly through violence.
So the answer to your question is that we are an extremely aggressive species. There were other species that were closely related to us and had the abilities that you think are so unique, but we took them out.
To clarify, I’m interpreting your question as being “if human beings and other life forms share common ancestry, why are humans the only species with these unique abilities like sophisticated language, reasoning, etc.”.
I think the only answer I’m not fully satisfied with is the answer to the “will goats talk” question.
Certainly, we can “evolve” a goat to have a better voice box and the ability to move its lips in speechlike ways. But that’s setting aside the enormous amount of our brains that are devoted to speech.
Large complex brain = comprehensible speech/ability to form thoughts that need complex speech ability.
I’m afraid that unless you also evolve a goat with a MUCH bigger brain deliberately emphasizing the speech centers, that it will never quote Shakespeare.
Agreeing with those who say “by that time, it wouldn’t be a goat.”
There is some evolutionary path by which the animal humans call a goat could evolve into an animal that has the same speech ability as humans do. What “name redacted” does not understand is that there is no reason that this will happen unless such improvement is incrementally better for the goat’s reproductive success, which is unlikely to be the case. Goats are successful at what goats do, that is why they are goats.
1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
2) why can’t we find another two species with common ancestry that manifest such a gap in their evolution?
3) why are we the only ones to to develop speech?
4) will goats, for example, ever talk if given enough time?
5) when did the spider and the whale departed in evolution?
—
1) Permit me to answer a question with a question: considering the innumerable similarities humans share with apes, what explanation besides common ancestry could possibly account for them?
To answer your question, the perceived “gaps” in our abilities aren’t actually that great. They can’t communicate verbally or think in as complex and abstract a manner and we aren’t as strong, but if humans and other apes were any more closely related, there would be virtually no “gaps” (however you choose to define the term) at all.
2) I don’t have a clear answer to this question but I suspect there are many, many species that share as close a relationship as humans and other apes. Domestic cats and lions? Dolphins and larger whales?
3) We are far from the only species to develop complex vocal communication as most of our fellow vertebrates can make – and process – some kind of noise, so the raw materials (lower jaw, larynx, tongue, ears, brains capable of interpreting sound) have been in use for a long time. How humans ended up the only species to speak is not completely clear (and we don’t know if we were ever unique; the extinct Neandertals may have had languages of their own) but complex speech bestows upon us obvious advantages in organisation (to name one area of activity in social animals); it is a useful trait for hunters, gatherers or those on the lookout for predators/enemies. Dolphins and whales are also skilled vocal communicators with highly complex vocabularies of sounds; they may not currently qualify as “languages” in the human sense, but that may change as more is learned about how they communicate.
4) If goats capable of complex verbal communication are ever selected for (either by nature or artificially by breeders), there may one day be goats that can talk (curiously, they may no longer meet the definition of “goat” at that point). In either case it would likely take an extremely long time. Are you curious to know what goats are thinking?
5) The spider and the whale did not “depart”, just as you and your cousins did not “depart”; in neither case were you ever “together”.
In your case, you and your cousins had your grandparents as your common ancestor two generations ago. In the case of the whale and spider, I can’t give you a number but their common ancestor would have been an exceedingly simple creature, likely with neither legs nor lungs and with the intervening generations possibly being in the millions.
All evolution requires to make apparently radical (by our human temporal standards) changes is time. The Earth has had living organisms on it for over three billion years. However life was originally kick-started, the fact of evolution over that time is undeniable and many of the processes well-known (and well-explained by people like Prof Coyne).
Reading your point three made me think of another possible answer: because we don’t have pheromones.
(Yes, I realize we do have some, but not to the extent that, say, ants do. Nor can we convey information via dances like honey bees…and the list goes on…)
There are so many ways to communicate besides aurally.
“Nor can we convey information via dances…”
I think there may be choreographers who’d beg to differ!
/@
They’re nowhere near as specific or as quantitative. 😀
Excellent point! Almost without exception, communication is universal throughout the animal kingdom, especially among mammals who are almost without exception social creatures (at least part of the time).
In fact – correct me if I’m wrong – as far as numbers of individuals and number of species go, we’re far outnumbered by insects who communicate chemically and visually as well as aurally; even communities of bacteria can transfer information chemically in order to regulate gene expression (see “quorum sensing”, also used by some communal insects). Communication confers an obvious advantage – given the proliferation of life on Earth it would be very odd indeed if methods for transferring information between individuals was uncommon.
Reading your point 1 makes me think of something else…
1. Genetics tells us that humans and other apes are closely related. So, it’s not not an “if” question. You can read the papers on the homology between humans and other ape species if you’d like. There’s no way to dispute this unless you’re going to insist that genetics can’t determine who the father of a particular baby is. Then you’re trying to overturn settled science, as well as settled law. Good luck with that.
Also, we share the same DISABILITIES with other apes — specifically the vitamin C pseudogene. Even creationist Michael Behe grants that this is iron-clad evidence that we share a common ancestor.
I’m very late to the party, but I just want to point out, since the email seems to refer to “talking goats,” maybe out of sincerity, maybe as a facetious question, that the Bible has a talking donkey. I would maybe pose to an orthodox believer what he/she makes of that. Is that meant to be literal?
For that matter, can God close the mouths of lions, as he did for Daniel?
Ah!
God was talking out of His ass!
/@
Boo! Hiss!!!
(But I’ll probably steal that very shortly.)
ROFL!!
That’s positively Shakesperian, Ant! Reminds me of A Summer Night’s Dream.
In response to his question 1, we need to be clear. Humans and apes are not distinct.
Humans are apes. If you agree that chimps are apes, and that we are closer cousins to chimps than any other species and vice versa, then you are left with the conclusion that we are apes, African apes.
One wonders what the writer thinks is the best method for finding trut
One wonders what the writer thinks is the best method for finding truth?
Re: Question 3) I really don’t think we give animals enough credit for the sophistication of their communication. They don’t need to talk to us, they need to talk to each other. Studies on prairie dogs have shown that their alarm calls differ based on the color of the perceived predator. “Blue danger” vs. “Yellow danger” sounds a lot like talking to me.
If evolution were true, would the writer really want to know? Would it lead him to question his faith? If the writer really would want to know if evolution were true, what sort of evidence (or answers to his questions) would make him accept evolution?
(Sorry about the double post above– the wordpress demons are out today.)
Not much to add at this point. Perhaps I can be the tersest.
1. Runaway brains¹ &/or fire².
2. Brassicas.
3. See #1.
4. Who knows?³
5. O(10⁹) years.
/@
¹ Christopher Wills, The Runaway Brain
² Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire
³ That is, we can’t predict where evolution will lead.
⁹ An exponent, not a footnote.
Loved that last line—a disguised liar paradox.
“1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
2) why can’t we find another two species with common ancestry that manifest such a gap in their evolution?
3) why are we the only ones to to develop speech?
4) will goats, for example, ever talk if given enough time?”
The first four questions are loaded, and would ordinarily elicit the response of asking for clarification. (2) is especially bad, akin to asking “have you stopped beating your wife?” What criteria is the divergence, and how are we to say it’s unmatched?
For (1), while highlighting the fact that it’s actually difficult to find qualitative differences between us and other animals, that we have a greater capacity for cultural transmission of ideas. For (3), it would depend on what is meant by speech. Many animals communicate verbally, including one breed of monkey that has specific sounds for various threats. A more reasonable question would be to ask why is our language so complex and flexible compared to other animals, but that’s asking a quantitative difference rather than a qualitative one. (4) if we want goats to speak human language, then no selection pressure in the world is going to turn a goat brain into a human one. But in terms of goats developing a more complex and precise language between goats, there’s no reason to exclude the selection pressures and mutations for this a priori.
“5) when did the spider and the whale departed in evolution?”
Since whales sit on the vertebrate branch of the tree of life, and spiders on the invertebrate branch, the “departure” point would be when the vertebrate and invertebrate lineages diverged. This happened at least 500 million years ago, possibly longer.
1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
Depends what percentage of our abilities you consider. Much of the digestion processes would be very similar, same for immune system, cardiac system, basic functions of the more primitive parts of the brain, sexual reproduction is pretty much the same system, DNA is very similar, coding and decoding of the latter also, much of the synthesis of proteins, bone creation, development of embryos, etc., etc., etc.
To all intents and purposes, the aspects that are different constitute more of a thin varnish covering a core that is quite similar.
1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
Before answering the question, please note that the physical and biochemical differences are not very great. Carl Linnaeus famously considered humans a species of chimpanzee, and accepted chiding from his correspondents on the matter, saying, in effect, yes, I know we belong with the chimps, but *I* don’t have the courage to say it in public.
Directly to the point, we, unlike the chimps, developed upright posture, opposable thumbs, and the ability to speak. The *cultural* evolution that resulted has happened much faster than biological evolution. Our forebrain allows us to peer through the Hubble telescope at galaxies back near the start of the universe, our hindbrain keeps us afraid of the dark.
Oh, I like that!
Dear Orthodox Jew:
Once upon a time you were Cannaites. You were not monotheists, but in fact worshiped many Gods, the residue of which are still found in your holy books.
Your faith, like all faiths in the region, was actually compromised of a primary faith that borrowed from other faiths. Your primary gods, back then, were El, Asherah, and Baal. You had many other minor gods as well.
You were known as Ugarits. You practiced child sacrifice (first born child), though gave it up somewhere around 800BC. THe story of Isaac is an alegory for that societial chance where animals were used instead.
Over time there were many schisms. Your religion changed, as religions do. The biggest change came around 600AD when a group of power-hungry toadies decided to re-write your faith to monothesim (during the reign of King Josiah). That lasted all of one king and you went back to polythesim.
Hundreds of years later, your religion kept simplifying and became far more compact shedding Gods and Goddesses in favor of Monotheistic belief structures. But it wasn’t until somewhere around 1400AD did all sects of Judaism become monotheists, dropping Asherah and Baal completely.
The bottom line, most all of your holy books are, in fact, not true and not even within a light-year of true.
This is especially true of the stories in Exodus as Egypt, at that time, extended close to what we call “Turkey” today. All the Jews would have been doing was wandering around in Egypt which did not end at the Sinai desert and was, in fact, heavily populated and fortified with Egyptian forts all over the region, each within on day’s march of another.
So, I find your religious based questions to be meaningless. You may has well taken them from the Lord of the Rings… Or Star Wars… Two other popular tales.
Is that right? That Judaism became monotheistic after the NT was written? Why, then, does the NT reflect a monotheistic God?
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Josiah was 600 BCE. Moses was AD-libbing.
I would love to know more about where you got your history.
Is there a source? Book perhaps?
I find this fascinating.
I can see why JAC turns this kind of stuff over to his readers. There is an insincere humility in the letter that thinly wrapped around the arrogance one sees in nominally educated but still willfully ignorant fundamentalists. What’s next for our orthodox questioner? Is he going to write mathematics professors and pose snide questions about the pythagorean theorem? What physics professor will he be hectoring with skepticism about quantum mechanics or relativity – skepticism that betrays his never having bothered to learn anything substantive at all about the subjects? And from this insulting list of “questions”, Jerry still has the courtesy to redact the name – far more courtesy than the intellectually dormant questioner deserves.
Yes, my impression is that his questions are those of a troll, not from someone with a sincere desire to know.
I’m not any kind of scientist, just a random person from the internet, but I thought I’d try to answer anyway.
1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
Because the ancestors of chimpanzees stayed in the forest while our ancestors moved on to the savannah, where we faced different selection pressures. There are many more predators on the savannah and things like lions and hyenas hunt in groups. Chimpanzees main enemy is the leopard, which hunts alone. To fight a group of predators like lions or hyenas, we’d need to be in bigger groups ourselves. Managing social interations in larger groups would take more brainpower.
Then there’s the hunting. Chimpanzees hunt but they tend to hunt animals smaller than them. Early human ancestors started hunting larger animals, which took more teamwork. Maybe learning to track animals and chase them for days across the savannah needed more brainpower too.
2) why can’t we find another two species with common ancestry that manifest such a gap in their evolution?
How about the elephant and the hyrax? One is small, furry, not that smart, lives in little holes in the mountains and is eaten by eagles, the other is huge, quite intelligent, has a long trunk, can ‘talk’ using sonic booms that travel through the earth, and has that amazing trunk. Or the hyrax and the manatee. The giant panda and the ribbon seal. The octopus and the mussel. The African grey parrot and the Kakapo (one is intelligent, smaller, can fly, is awake in the day, the other is not so clever, bigger, flightless, nocturnal). Or the spotted hyena- very social, hunts in packs, compared to the Aardwolf, a loner which eats only termites.
3) why are we the only ones to to develop speech?
No-one is really sure how humans developed speech. There are a few competing theories. One of them is that it was because we started forming bigger social groups and speech was a kind of social lubricant. Another idea is that it helped organise hunts. Scientists are still working on this question. If it interests you I recommend Stephen Pinker’s “The language instinct”.
There are other animals that have an ability called ‘vocal learning’ which means they can reproduce sounds they hear. It’s been found in whales and dolphins, bats, songbirds, hummingbirds, parrots, mice, elephants and seals. That ability doesn’t mean animals ‘speak’ in the way we do, but it’s a step on the way there. Dolphins and parrots both have been found to make sounds which seem to be used only for certain individuals- in other words, they can call each other by name.
4) will goats, for example, ever talk if given enough time?
No-one knows. It’s possible but they would have to change quite a lot first. Dolphins, if you go back far enough, had ancestors that might have looked something like a chevrotain, which is a hoofed mammal a bit like a goat.
Goats would probably need to change their diet first. Grass and leaves take a long time to process for not much energy. A big, meaty brain like ours that can decode a language needs lots of high-quality energy. Maybe if they start eating meat.
Of course it’s not likely because we control goat evolution at the moment, deciding who will breed with who, and we breed them for better meat and more milk, not speaking ability.
5) when did the spider and the whale departed in evolution?
This has been answered already. It was a long long time ago. The ancestors of the whale went through many changes, from a symmetrical thingy to a worm to a fish to an amphipian, that left the water to find the athropods already there, got smaller to hide in burrows while the dinosaurs were roaming about, got bigger again, got hooves and then went back into the water. Amazing, right? (It didn’t happen exactly like that, that just gives you a rough idea).
Hey,Rob, “…random person from the internet.” I like the way you write!:D
Very nice! I especially like the hyrax vs. the elephant.
That guy needs to read some basic books on evolution–for instance, yours!
1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
They’re not! Only 5-10 MY ago we were living very simailr lives to other Apes.
2) why can’t we find another two species with common ancestry that manifest such a gap in their evolution?
Try various species of whales, or horses or many others. No problem there.
3) why are we the only ones to to develop speech?
Many animals communicate through sounds, our brains have given us a slight advantage.
4) will goats, for example, ever talk if given enough time?
Proably not, they are more likely to die out first before that would happen.
5) when did the spider and the whale departed in evolution?
Not sure what he means by this. Have acommon ancestor maybe? If so 782 MY ago according to timetree.
3) why are we the only ones to to develop speech?
Luis Paul Villarreal (UC Irvine) describes remnants of viral DNA in our genome from retroviruses. He has the brilliant idea that our ability to talk could have been derived from a viral DNA sequence spliced in a crucial area of our genome.
1) if human beings and apes share common ancestry, why are the gaps between our abilities so great?
This is really a rather silly question. We evolved in different directions, obviously the differences in abilities can be arbitrarily large just depending on the rate of evolution and the time available.
So the extent of the differences is absolutely NOT an argument either for or against evolution or a common ancestor.
I could ask, “If ostriches and albatrosses share common ancestry” yadda yadda.
Or even “If Albert Einstein and Bill O’Reilly share common ancestry, why are the gaps in their abilities so great?”
(Choosing an example there that not even the fundies would challenge common ancestry (Adam and Eve?), though one does have to wonder…)
It’s exactly the same logic…
Better yet:
“If Peter and Christopher Hitchens share the same common ancestry, why are the gaps in their abilities so great?”
+1
I had thought of exactly that example, but I thought maybe it was a bit more obscure. I’m not aware if Christopher Hitchens is quite so spectacularly dumb as Bill O’Reilly.
How is life in Opposite World?
Bah! I meant Peter Hitchens, of course. Being dumb, I mean. NOT Christopher Hitchens.
I hate it when that happens…
Welcome back to Regular World. 😉
Artificially breeding goats to talk. I want to see this happen. I want to know what they would talk about. I will happily donate to a Kickstarter if anyone wants to get this off the ground.
😛
For a start I would ask him a counter question: “Can you think of a piece of evidence that would alter your beliefs?”
Dismissing the easier ones first :
Both eukaryotes … one a vertebrates, and therefore a deuterostome ; one an arthropod and therefore a protostome (or have I got that inverted – ass-backwards even?). So, separation time would have been pre-Cambrian (542+ megayears ago), but post the Great Oxidation Event (2.2 – 2.4 gigayears ago). Others have suggested a rather precise 740-odd megayears ago, but I fear that’s more precise than the evidence really supports. 600Ma to 1Ga is almost certainly correct however.
We can’t? How about, say, coelurosaurian dinosaurs and Archaeopteryx? (Several of the extant specimens now recognised as Archaeopteryx were initially misidentified as members of the coelurosauria clade.)
Animals have communication systems appropriate to their needs. Gibbons communicate with other gibbons with sufficient complexity to pass on the things that one gibbon needs to say to another gibbon (“Hello,” “give me your food,” “shall we have sex?”, “Leopard!”, but not “how many theologians can dance on the head of an angel?”) Humans have more complex communication needs (“hit the flint here, not here!” “shall we have sex?” “If I give you some food, can I have sex with you?” “Hwæt wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum”) and a correspondingly more complex communication system.
I think fundamentally it’s a question of feedback between communication system (speech, and latterly writing) and communication needs. But that’s really a question for historians – which I’m not. Humans don’t have the crystal clarity of minerals. How does Bender put it? “Meat bags.”
Give them an environment in which they need to speak, and go through enough generations of culling the ones with least speech ability while cross-breeding those with more appropriate abilities. They’ll speak. But … I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting.
“Both eukaryotes … one a vertebrates, and therefore a deuterostome ; one an arthropod and therefore a protostome (or have I got that inverted – ass-backwards even?).”
😀
(It’s also clear to me that the questioner is an unimaginative troll. Just more polite than normal.
Actually, the “troll” may have prompted me to quote Beowulf above.
Some examples that immediately spring to mind for question #2:
-Whales and hippos
-Birds and crocodiles
-Clams and octopi
“My apology if these questions seem extremely dumb.”
I wouldn’t use the word “dumb”, but your questions do reveal a profound ignorance about the subject of evolution. What puzzles me is why you expect a busy professional scientist to give you your own personal lesson in the basics of evolutionary theory, instead of first learning a little from one of the many good introductory books on the subject.
Still, I’m not so busy (or a professional scientist) so I’ll answer your questions briefly. But I’m afraid these answers may not make much sense to you until you’ve read an introductory book and grasped the basic concepts involved.
1 & 2. According to evolutionary theory all species have common ancestors with each other if you go back far enough. This isn’t limited to apes and humans. So species with far greater differences than apes and humans have common ancestors. There is no particular limit to how much species can evolve. Given enough time, a descendant species can become vastly different from an ancestral species, and so two different species with the same ancestors can be vastly different from each other.
3. Some traits are more likely to evolve than others. Speech may be unlikely to evolve. In any case, for any trait there must be a species that had that trait first. Given that any species has had speech, there must have been a first species with speech. And there’s no reason to be surprised that we are that species.
4. Given enough time, evolutionary descendants can become so different from their ancestors that they can no longer be considered the same species. We humans evolved from some common ancestor that we share with chimpanzees, but we are not the same species as that ancestor. Going back far enough, we have evolved from bacteria. But we are not bacteria. It’s possible in principle, though extremely unlikely, that some distant descendants of goats might evolve the power of speech. However, those descendants of goats would not themselves be goats. They would be a very different species.
5. I’m no expert, but a Web search indicates that the lineages leading to spiders and whales diverged in the pre-Cambrian period, at least 558 million years ago. Note that this was hundreds of millions of years before the evolution of whales, which appeared less than 50 million years ago. (Your question suggests you think that spiders and whales evolved directly from their last common ancestor, which is not the case.)
“We in Judaism don’t seek proof for our beliefs”
Stopped there.
Interpreted the right way one of your questions is actually quite interesting scientifically, but you make a false assumption that there is a large “gap” between humans and apes.
1) This question is really about the supposed divinity of human beings compared to animals (and apes), given the apparent “tremendous” intellectual gap between them. It’s the old idea that since we are so much better than apes that there must be something supernatural about us.
The gap is not as large as you think. Apes are actually very similar to humans. Around 98% of human and ape DNA is the same, and since DNA is the “code” that runs our bodies this means we function almost identically to apes – We have similar anatomy, can catch most of the same diseases, react to drugs in similar ways, and are also intelligent. The “gap” between us is in this sense quite small, and the similarities should be striking to you.
Maybe there is something supernatural about our brains? Our brains also function a lot like ape’s and have very similar structure, and apes arguably the most intelligent species on earth besides us. There are only tiny differences between our brains.
But, you might still say the gap seems large to you: We have dominated earth while apes haven’t, and we have speech, a huge difference! Here’s where it gets scientifically interesting. It seems that even minute changes to our brains can cause large changes in intelligence. Think of all the genetic diseases that dramatically affect intelligence, due to tiny genetic differences. All it took was the right tiny tweaks to ape brains to get our human brains.
How these small tweaks affected our brains is a really interesting scientific question, because we don’t really know how the brain works! Knowing the details would shed a lot of light on the brain’s function. We do know about some of the mechanisms of the brain – enough that we can see ape and human brains function in a very similar way, but not enough to understand the precise mechanisms that make us different. Plenty of people are researching this question!
2) Think of extinct species: A lot of the time, one variant of an organism gets totally wiped out by another! There must have been a huge gap! We humans haven’t done it to apes yet, but unfortunately we are working on it.
3) Same answer as #1.
4) We don’t know, but possibly.
5) You can look this up on wikipedia. Look in the side box “scientific classification” on the whale page, and find the highest level clasification spiders and whales share, in this case the kingdom “animalia”, around 550 million years ago. You can get a little more specific by climbing the tree of life into the more specific group known as “bilatera”.
You can also try entering the animals you are interested in at http://www.tolweb.org/, which has a nicer interface, and working up to the common root in the tree.
“We have dominated earth while apes haven’t…” To which some might say (and have) “White European males have dominated the United States while Native Americans haven’t…,” proving clearly one superior to the other.
There were too many comments for me to read all of them, so probably this has already been mentioned, but, re: the difference in abilities between men and gorillas I think the questioner needs to add some data before drawing conclusions, for example:
1) Chimpanzees and bonobos are closer relatives to us than gorillas and closer in ability, and share out language ability to this extent: although they lack our speech centers, several of them have learned sign language.
2. Even closer to us genetically and in ability were the Neandertals, and the Denisovans. They are not still around to speak for themselves, probably because we contributed to their extinction, as we have to those of many other species. So the assumption behind the question seems a bit like claiming a divine destiny has made one the heir to a kingdom when in fact one has killed all rivals.
Interesting thread! I only hope that the original questioner who wrote to Professor Coyne has read it.