HomeLatest ThreadsGreatest ThreadsForums & GroupsMy SubscriptionsMy Posts
DU Home » Latest Threads » Forums & Groups » Topics » Science » Science (Group) » You come from this....Old... » Reply #6

Response to Ichingcarpenter (Original post)

Thu Feb 9, 2012, 02:25 PM

6. Well ... you come from a *relative* of this. :)

It's very unlikely that any particular fossil organism is our direct ancestor, even if it's from the right phylum, class, order etc. The best we can say is that it's from a genetic population that's very close, *possibly* identical, to the one that led to us.

("If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" is the question to which this is the answer. We evolved from particular populations of primates, none of which exists today, but some of which split from the ancestors of surviving primate populations. The more recent the split, the more similar our genomes to those surviving primates. But none will have a genome identical to our direct ancestors -- those genomes evolved into us, or into other well-adapted, hence relatively long-surviving, primate populations.)

Reply to this post

Back to OP Alert abuse Link to post in-thread

Always highlight: 10 newest replies | Replies posted after I mark a forum
Replies to this discussion thread
Arrow 33 replies Author Time Post
Ichingcarpenter Feb 2012 OP
The Velveteen Ocelot Feb 2012 #1
krispos42 Feb 2012 #5
AverageJoe90 Feb 2012 #11
seeviewonder Feb 2012 #12
expatriate2mex Feb 2012 #17
HopeHoops Feb 2012 #2
peace frog Feb 2012 #3
tridim Feb 2012 #4
dmallind Feb 2012 #15
tridim Feb 2012 #16
Kennah Feb 2012 #19
LineReply Well ... you come from a *relative* of this. :)
eppur_se_muova Feb 2012 #6
RainDog Feb 2012 #9
Odin2005 Feb 2012 #13
Orsino Feb 2012 #7
LiberalLovinLug Feb 2012 #8
TBF Feb 2012 #10
separationcs Feb 2012 #14
Lucky Luciano Feb 2012 #18
lunasun Feb 2012 #23
lastlib Feb 2012 #20
grahamhgreen Feb 2012 #28
lastlib Feb 2012 #31
grahamhgreen Feb 2012 #32
lastlib Feb 2012 #21
progressoid Feb 2012 #22
HowHeThinks Feb 2012 #25
progressoid Feb 2012 #26
dmallind Feb 2012 #27
grahamhgreen Feb 2012 #29
grahamhgreen Feb 2012 #30
Harry Monroe Feb 2012 #24
jtuck004 Feb 2012 #33
Please login to view edit histories.