yes, I believe it, the reason why I say this, just look at the similarities between apes and man, both have 2 eyes, 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 ears and all in the same place on the body, and also other species of the animal kingdom evolve, why wouldn't the human species?
2006-09-21 10:33:15
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answer #1
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answered by bipolargandolf 2
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Humans *are* apes, descended from earlier apes. Our closest relatives are chimpanzees, and the most recent common ancestor of both humans and chimpanzees was approximately 6 million years ago.
The way to understand our origins is to remember that living organisms are in a state of constant change - It's not that evolution *can* occur, but that it *must* occur, simply because there is no mechanism in living organisms to ensure perfect, flawless reproduction for ever.
Suppose you could study a population of chimpanzees in the jungle, on a timescale of millions of years. Clearly, each individual only lives a few decades, so the population is constantly being succeeded by individuals which are different from their parents, because reproduction is imperfect - and remember, this is *inevitable*. It can't *not* happen. All the time this population is inter-breeding, the genes are getting mixed together, and only genes which work well with all other chimpanzee genes will tend to get passed down to successive generations (because individuals with genes that don't work well together will tend not to survive and reproduce).
However, suppose that circumstances arise which cause a group to become genetically isolated from other chimpanzees. This could be as a result of an accident of geography (e.g. an impassable river) or breeding preference or simply great distance. There will develop two distinct groups of chimpanzees which can never again exchange genes, because they have become different enough that mating will not produce viable offspring. This is what biologists define as speciation - i.e. the population has forever split into two distinct groups. Biologists have observed many instances of speciation, so there is no doubt that it occurs.
Assuming that both groups continue to survive, it is again *inevitable* that they will diverge genetically - There is no possible way that both groups, isolated and independent from each other, can change in exactly the same ways, and the longer they continue to breed, the more different they will become. Over millions of years, given that the rate of genetic change via mutation tends to remain fairly constant, the two groups will become as distinct as today's chimpanzees and humans are from each other, and from their most recent common ancestor.
All this is based on what we *know* is true - it's not supposition or guesswork, and remember it's not just possible, it absolutely *has* to happen, because there is no mechanism in biology to make reproduction a 100% perfect, flawless process.
NB: The reason we're classed as apes is that there is no valid way to group all the other apes together that doesn't also apply to humans. In other words, whatever criteria you use to define what is an ape, in order to include chimpanzees, gorillas, orangs and gibbons, humans will also fit those criteria. Indeed, chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than to gorillas, and gorillas are more closely related to humans and chimpanzees than they are to orangs, so any classification that separated humans out from those other apes would not make any sense.
2006-09-23 05:38:05
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answer #2
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answered by Anonymous
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Another brilliant question brought to you by another Yahoo MORON. We're ALL native Americans. Mine came over on a ship... yours crossed the Bering straits from Asia during the last ice age! So we arrived late... so what? We won... we kicked the red man's *** and now the country is OURS. Go back to the Reservation, and get drunk!
2006-09-21 17:34:09
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answer #3
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answered by Anonymous
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EXACTLY, AND WHITE MANS THEORIES IS THE REASON THEIR ARE SO MANY DYSFUNCTIONAL WESTERNERS
2006-09-21 17:30:45
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answer #4
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answered by nwnativeprincess 6
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