Are you a monkey’s cousin, or is your god is an asshole?

Started by PopeyesPappy, June 16, 2013, 12:58:36 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

PopeyesPappy

About 8% of human DNA is viral in origin. Almost all of the viral DNA is common to all primates. There are only two possible explanations for both the commonality and the differences. It accumulated over time in our ancestors during the evolutionary process, or god put it there. The former, like everything else we understand about biology is consistent with evolution. As for the later, well there was no real reason for god to put viral DNA in all its creations. Especially since god would know that I and others like me would see the evidence for evolution and reject creationism. If that is the case my theist friends your god wants me to burn in his hell fires, and that makes him an asshole.
Save a life. Adopt a Greyhound.

Hydra009

Quote from: "PopeyesPappy"About 8% of human DNA is viral in origin. Almost all of the viral DNA is common to all primates. There are only two possible explanations for both the commonality and the differences.
...and only one that is falsifiable.  Sure, one could say that god did it all (in exactly a way that evokes common descent and speciation), but one could also say that god also magically constructed all the world's pyramids.  Such a conjecture is worthless.

stromboli

Quote from: "PopeyesPappy"About 8% of human DNA is viral in origin. Almost all of the viral DNA is common to all primates. There are only two possible explanations for both the commonality and the differences. It accumulated over time in our ancestors during the evolutionary process, or god put it there. The former, like everything else we understand about biology is consistent with evolution. As for the later, well there was no real reason for god to put viral DNA in all its creations. Especially since god would know that I and others like me would see the evidence for evolution and reject creationism. If that is the case my theist friends your god wants me to burn in his hell fires, and that makes him an asshole.

Outstanding.  =D>

Mermaid

A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Solitary

Since there is no reliable evidence for 6,000 years of recorded history that all the gods are a myth, it's logical assume God doesn't exist, so how can He be an asshole?  However, there is overwhelming evidence with none ever being falsified by new evidence in every field of science, it is safe to assume we are an apes cousin and not a monkeys. So the question is incoherent to ask.  [-X  Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

PopeyesPappy

Quote from: "Solitary"it is safe to assume we are an apes cousin and not a monkeys. So the question is incoherent to ask.  [-X  Solitary
Sorry Solitary but you are wrong. We are cousins to the monkeys and the apes. A little closer to apes, but still closely related to monkeys which are after all primates too.
Save a life. Adopt a Greyhound.

Solitary

OK! Got it. I'm wrong that God doesn't exist?

I know you didn't mean that. But what do you mean by monkeys cousin?

According to your definition of a cousin we are cousins to Prosimians also then.

According to our current understanding of the evolutionary history of the primates, several of these groups are paraphyletic, meaning although all the species in the group descend from a common ancestor, the group does not include all the descendants of that ancestor.

I have to agree that my one cousin is closer to a haplorhines than a monkey though.  :shock:   :rollin:
 
prosimians
monkeys
great apes
humans
lesser apes

Prosimians are a type of primate that include lemurs, lorises, bushbabies, and tarsiers, but not monkeys, apes, or humans (simians). They are considered to have characteristics that are more "primitive" than those of monkeys and apes. Prosimians are the only primates native to Madagascar, but are also found throughout Africa and in Asia. With the exception of the tarsiers, all extant prosimians are in the suborder Strepsirrhini. Because tarsiers, as well as some extinct prosimians, share a more recent common ancestor with monkeys and apes than with other prosimians, the prosimian are a paraphyletic group and not a clade.
The adapiforms are an extinct grouping that were both prosimians and strepsirrhines. The omomyiforms are another extinct group of prosimians, but they are believed to be haplorhines, closely related to the tarsiers, but an outgroup to the rest of the haplorhines. Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

AllPurposeAtheist

We elvolved from praying mantises so we could pray to.... ahh skip it..you ain't gonna believe it anyway. :-k
All hail my new signature!

Admit it. You're secretly green with envy.

PopeyesPappy

Quote from: "Solitary"OK! Got it. I'm wrong that God doesn't exist?

I know you didn't mean that. But what do you mean by monkeys cousin?

According to your definition of a cousin we are cousins to Prosimians also then.

According to our current understanding of the evolutionary history of the primates, several of these groups are paraphyletic, meaning although all the species in the group descend from a common ancestor, the group does not include all the descendants of that ancestor.

I have to agree that my one cousin is closer to a haplorhines than a monkey though.  :shock:   :rollin:
 
prosimians
monkeys
great apes
humans
lesser apes

Prosimians are a type of primate that include lemurs, lorises, bushbabies, and tarsiers, but not monkeys, apes, or humans (simians). They are considered to have characteristics that are more "primitive" than those of monkeys and apes. Prosimians are the only primates native to Madagascar, but are also found throughout Africa and in Asia. With the exception of the tarsiers, all extant prosimians are in the suborder Strepsirrhini. Because tarsiers, as well as some extinct prosimians, share a more recent common ancestor with monkeys and apes than with other prosimians, the prosimian are a paraphyletic group and not a clade.
The adapiforms are an extinct grouping that were both prosimians and strepsirrhines. The omomyiforms are another extinct group of prosimians, but they are believed to be haplorhines, closely related to the tarsiers, but an outgroup to the rest of the haplorhines. Solitary

My definition of cousin is apparently the same as yours if you are willing to grant the title to apes. An ape is related to me the same way my mother's nephew is. We share a common ancestor. My common ancestor with an ape was several million years ago instead of a 100. My relation with a monkey is the same. Our common ancestor just goes back several million years before that of the ape. Same with your lemurs, then whales, marsupials, birds, amphibians, fish, mollusks, jelly fish, sponges, mushrooms, bananas and bacteria. Each succeeding species a more distant cousin. In the case of bananas and bacteria our common ancestor was billions of years ago not millions. My relationship with each is basically the same as with my mother's nephew. We share a common ancestor.
Save a life. Adopt a Greyhound.

Plu

By this logic, every human being is your cousin. Every living thing is your cousin, even. It makes the word "cousin" synonymous to "living organism on earth". That seems pointless.

PopeyesPappy

Pretty much. That doesn't change the fact that if Solitary is willing to grant the title to apes it should apply to monkeys too. What's the difference between 1x10^5 and 1x10^9 generations ago?
Save a life. Adopt a Greyhound.

Plu

About the same as the difference between your parents and a bunch of cavemen...

WitchSabrina

Quote from: "Mermaid"But I want to pick both!  :cry:

I'm gonna go with this ^ response.  I trust Mermaid to know what she's talking about.  
 :rollin:
I am currently experiencing life at several WTFs per hour.

PopeyesPappy

Quote from: "Plu"About the same as the difference between your parents and a bunch of cavemen...
Well Plu were do you draw the line? Is it just some arbitrary point in time? Our most recent common ancestor with all the great apes was about 10 millions years ago. Solitary was OK with that. Our most recent common ancestor with all monkeys was 25 million. He said no to that. WTF is the difference other than time and number of generations?

My mother's nephew is my 1st cousin. Her cousin is my 1st cousin once removed. There have been 200 to 250 thousand generations since humans and chimps split. That makes chimps and humans cousins 200 to 250 thousand times removed and a million or so times removed to monkeys.
Save a life. Adopt a Greyhound.

Plu

I've never really thought about where I draw the line, but I'm pretty sure there's a difference between the word "cousin" used to describe immediate family (making my parent's brothers' child my cousin) and the word "cousin" used when describing species, which usually means creatures of a different species but in the same Family. (in terms of species classifications)

But mixing up the two meanings of the word is silly, because it removes any kind of meaning from it. They're two different words. Under the second, I guess it makes sense to call the great apes our cousins (if I'm getting the species' terms correct in english anyway).

But under neither of them does it really make sense to me to call monkeys our cousins. They're even further up the tree (sharing our Superfamily, but not regular Family). All of the other species go back even further.

You can't use the word "cousin" the way you are without making it a word devoid of any useful meaning whatsoever. That's just silly.