Why do they say MAN evolved instead of WOMAN?

Question

Wouldn't it make more sense for the first living creature to be one able to produce life.

And then theres the question of whichever sex evolved first how did it procreate? Who was there to procreate with? Scientists say that the evolution of life is so improbable that it took millions of years for the conditions of this improbability to take place so are we to believe that something compatible with the first human also evolved at the same time?

I'm aware this question seems to have a religious slant but I am really trying to weigh up the pros and cons of both evolution and creation. Does anyone have a plausable scenario?

So Cirric are you saying Man was asexual? If thats the case then why would that trait be abolished by natural selection, surely that would be beneficial for the survival of the species.

Some good argument there Secret.

Kathjarq - When you say the two theories are not mutually exclusive you are wrong. They very much ARE since evolution has death bringing man into the world and creationism has man bringing death into the world. Theres no way the 2 theories can co-exist as they both advocate a totally opposite point of view....

Answer 1

Hi. Many creatures procreate asexually. This has a benefit sometimes but dramatically slows any changes for adaptability to the environment. Sex was an important advantage. And it predates any creature alive today.

Answer 2

Single cell organisms reproduce asexually... cellular division. Perhaps we began that way. Perhaps we then evolved into creatures capable of choosing the sex that they needed to be given the environmental conditions.

There are several theories as to how we came to be upon this planet, but no irrefutable proof, from either the scientific camp or the religious camp. The scientists have DNA and fossils... neither of which has revealed the "big" picture. The religious folks have thousands of years of habit and belief... a book or two and a lot of rhetoric.

My scenario is one that some believe, but... like all the others, it takes a certain amount of 'suspension of disbelief.' I believe that a Creator exists, and that this Creator at times used an 'evolutionary' process for its creations.

Either way... pure evolution, or divine Creation, it still happens that the beginning of the world (Adam & Eve or The Big Bang) was Something from Something. Where the something came from (Creator or stray matter) is for minds much more cosmic and intelligent than my own. Think I'll stick with my wee bit of ability to suspend disbelief :) Sorry I couldn't help. I'll be watching your answers! Good question.

Answer 3

If you are asking about human evolution, then we can tell you that sexual reproduction was around in the great ape family and for that matter mammals and for that matter animals and for that matter yeast and lower microorganisms in general utilize meiosis, the point of sexual reproduction, long before humans came to be. Even the exchange of genetic material in a bacterial population was around long before people. If you are asking just in general about the evolution of sexual reproduction, remember that there are many species out there that reproduce sexually yet contain both "male" and "female" sex organs on the same organism, you can call the organs whatever you like this just makes it easier to describe. But the point is that many "lower" organisms do not need a seperate sex to reproduce in a similar fashion to us. From this point it wouldn't be too much of a jump to imagine a point in the evolution of these species to have an assymetric cell division where one daughter cell gets only one sex organ, if this doesn't kill the organism then you got two sexes.

Answer 4

Well, the using of the term "Man" has been used throughout recorded time to denote the human race. We still say "Mankind", and only prickly feminists have a problem with it now, as it was always used as a collective noun for both men and women. It has no derogatory connotation for me, 'mankind' will do if one leaves current political correctness, which can really torture a language, out of it.

In our more politically correct society, you can find any number of writings where the author is desperately trying to avoid stepping on any feminine toes by saying "men/women, and variations on that theme.

As to the second part of the question, the fact that an organism may take millions of years to evolve is not so hard to accept, and when you think that many similar ones with the same conditions impacting on them at the same time make would make it extremely possible ~ even probable ~ that they should evolve simultanously. Their sex would, as in all things, have to be in place for the species not to stop right there, but procreate, or "Go forth and multiply", in order to populate the world.

The improbability of an event is not a valid reason to discount it. Our own lives are filled with such events, so why deny this phenomenon to the creator of creation, by whichever means used?
This incredible coming together of just the right conditions, at a time in the beginning which allowed our earliest ancestors to evolve as they did, could just as well be part of a divine plan, if that is where your beliefs lie.

If you really read about evolution, it is a most wonderful and complex process. If it were to be discounted on the basis of improbability, you are, in essence, saying that a creator or God or whatever is incapable of doing the improbable. Improbable events have been happening throughout the universe and on earth for milennia.

Assuming some creator couldn't have put it all together this way, with it unfolding in the way it did is a tremendous insult to that creator's abilities, powers, what ever you wish to call it..

The two beliefs are NOT mutually exclusive.

The extremely simplistic one of it happening in 7 days all at once, is more improbable, and it also takes away the spectacular beauty of the universe, the world, and ourselves, by limiting a creator to only being able to do what makes more sense to their more limited perceptions and understanding of "how things should be". They should not, in my opinion, put their own limitations onto the one they think is responsible for all of cration. k

Answer 5

That language is a leftover from the *religious* notion that Adam was created before Eve. So when you write "they say MAN" ... whoever "they" are, they not scientists.

The use of the word "man" to mean "humans" has no place in science. It's not just the sexism of it, but the fact that the word "Man" is singular. For example, the other day someone on YA described how "Man moved from Africa to Europe" ... which grammatically suggests that "Man" can't be in two places at once. It makes so much more sense to say that "humans" moved from Africa into Europe as this paints the more correct picture that "humans" can exist in both Africa and Europe at the same time (which is of course true).

But as to your question, it is of course just as unscientific to believe that female humans evolved *before* male humans, as it is to believe that male humans appeared before females.

No scientist believes (as this would be silly) that some human female was born one day, and would be completely unable to mate unless a male human was born at about the same time. A human (male or female) isn't suddenly born one day in a world of non-humans that it is unable to mate with.

Instead, the entire population (males and females) of whatever species is considered pre-human, just slowly evolved into what we today call "humans." There is no sudden division one day between non-humans and humans ... any more than you can say, on June 23rd, this sapling became a tree.

The division between males and females occurred *long* before there were humans, or the ancestors to humans, or early primates, or early mammals, or even early vertebrates ... back to before there were fish.

Now the development of sexual reproduction, and the original division between males and females in some early life form is a whole other topic, and there are answers for how that came about ... but the development of Man and Woman (or the male and female of *any* vertebrate species) is not a problem for evolution AT ALL.

Answer 6

I think you're over-thinking it. I'm not a biologist, but simply put:

"Man" is a generic term used for homo sapiens species, not as a gender differentiator. Homo is Latin for "man".

Human beings are a species of homo sapiens and are bi-pedal primates of the class mammalia.

It is known that there were indeed other hominids who did develop such as proto-neanderthals and neanderthals, cro-magnon man, peking man, and a host of others that I can't just list off the top of my head.

Cro-magnon coexisted with modern man for well over 50,000 years. We aren't that special. There *were* others. We may have assimilated them.

As far as scenarios go, there is no cookie-cutter answer. In my estimation - science looks to expand and learn, to add to the knowledge base and to reform theories based on that knowledge as it is gathered, not remain constant and rigid in the face of new information without possibility of being updated or denied.

Aside from knowing evolution occurs, science doesn't offer pat, concrete, compact answers or a unified theory (yet). Creationism does. Just depends on what you need and want for your own peace of mind. You might try both the wiki and conservapedia (for a creationist point of view) for more information.

Good luck to you.

Answer 7

the error in your logic is that individuals evolve. individual organisms do not evolve.

evolution is the change in allele frequencies within an entire population.

EDIT:
.... therefore there would always be both male and female organisms present.... no need for asexual reproduction in humans.... early organisms reproduced asexually and some current "descendant" species reproduce asexually. Sexual reproduction developed evolutionarily as a way to spread greater variation.

Answer 8

Do you even know what you're talking about? You're basically disputing something based purely on semantics.