Where is the Fossil Evidence to Prove That We Humans Evolved From a Dollop of Goo?

Question

Apart from the elusive "common ancestor" of us Humans and Chimps (which, I have discovered, cannot be produced, nor even properly identified), is there any hard, hold-in-the-hand solid fossil evidence, that proves, unequiivocally (without doubt), that we humans evolved from apes? Just 'one', convincing sample with do.
Please, be specific. I've trawled all the suggested, relevant and overwhelming evolutionary information, searching for this.
Serious answers only. Jokes are fun sometimes, but not this time, please.

I forgot to mention that, no disrepect to you Creationists, but being fully aware of your stance on the subject of evolution, I would appreciate it if you allowed the evolutionary biologists to answer this, after all only they know the answer. Thanks.

Dr Green. Isn't it clear from the question what I would like? I can't think of any better way of putting it. Sorry!

DR GREEN
So you DID know exactly what I wanted?
There is really no need for sarcasm : ("Oh Please!" .... "magic beans" .... "go to the religious section"). Why are you so unessessarily intollerant? You are, obviously, an 'evolutionist'. Did you find the question too embarrasing to answer with a degree of maturity then?
This IS a serious question. I am GENUINELY trying to discover, from the "overwhelming abundance of fossil evidence", what it is that makes 'evolutionists' believe so strongly, even fanatically, as your response here shows, that the Theory of Evolution, regarding the Origin of the Human Being, is a 'fact'. If you can't answer the question, then forget it and give someone else a chance, eh?
Please be calm - I'm trying to learn. Thanks!

DR GREEN
PS - I forgot to mention your remark about life itself being all probabilities - If that's how you see it, then it's, sadly, no wonder that you react in such a negatively defensive way. My apologies!!

Dr GREEN
Yes I do have an issue with evolution. It's become so entrenched as a believable fact, that I feel it is greatly hindering the seach for the real facts surrounding modern human origin. There is no real fossil evidence to support the process of evolution. Evolutionists are now 'bullying' criticts and accusing Philosophers of not being in the real world, and Epistemologists for 'nit-picking'. They even accuse their fellow Biologists of being creationists and insane, because a great number of them don't agree with evolution. (See 'Talk Origin' -"Evolution is a Fact not a Theory") While Steven Gould says, "Fact is no certainty, there ain't no such animal". So you can, no doubt, see my dilema.
The battle is in full swing on another BBC chanel called Points of View. "Ethics and Freethought".
Take care

Answer 1

There is no evidence.

It is just what the majority of scientists believe.

They laugh at religion as being far-fetched, while some of their theories are equally far-fetched.

Answer 2

Evolution, as you rightly say, is no more than a theory. The same is true of all scientific "facts" and "laws". Science evolves by a continuous process of collecting data, then questioning and sometimes amending or totally falsifying previously accepted explanations. A scientific "law" is merely a descriptive convenience, and it gets binned when it no longer fits the facts.

We can put it another way. To be accepted as a viable hypothesis, a theory must be falsifiable - that is to say, you must be able to conceive a set of data which would disprove it.

Now, the creationist explanation falls outside this definition. If God created the universe as it stands, full of false clues to non-existent evolution, then there can be no data-set which could conceivable disprove the theory; any data found would simply be more false clues planted by the big jokester in the sky. I am not saying that the creationist theory is wrong - only that it is not scientific. It is not the sort of idea that science deals with.

Evolution is the best scientific theory we have yet. It is not, however, exactly the same theory as when Aristotle first thought it up. In particular, Lamarck, Wallace and Darwin moved things forward: evolutionists since Darwin have discounted some of Darwin's ideas and confirmed and elaborated others.

This does not mean that every detail of the evolutionary family tree is filled in. There is still a lot of guesswork, and evidence is still turning up. No scientist would say that he can prove that man evolved from a lump of goo; he would say that this is his best guess, based on the available evidence.

The evidence actually is impressive, especially since the analysis of DNA. It can be shown that all living organisms on Earth share at least some DNA with each other. The likeliest reason for this is that we are all related, the most similar organisms sharing more genes (e.g. cats and tigers have more in common than cats and dogs). Applying this to humans, gorillas, chimps etc. we can rough out a possible relationship, using essentially the same technology used in paternity cases.

But never forget that a theory is only a theory. Even Newton's laws of motion & gravitation bit the dust when Einstein came along.

Answer 3

I remember reading somewhere (correct me if I have the essentials wrong) a story about a farmer in Brazil who grew oranges back in the 1940's.
In his orange grove was a tree which for some reason produced oranges with no seeds.
He began to graft branches from that tree, which was essentially a mutant, onto other trees.
To this day, every navel orange that ever existed came from that mutant tree, or one of its branches.
Anyway, that is my understanding of how navel oranges came to be.
There was no intermediary form - the tree was a mutant.

In my opinion, many organisms that we see today must be the result of mutation rather than natural selection.
I say that because, it seems to me, that while natural selection might improve what I already have, it would be powerless to improve something that I don't have.
Case in point: natural selection cannot improve the eyes of a bacterium.
That is why I believe that the advent of eyes, as an example, was the result of a mutation.

What so profoundly sets man apart from all other animals is his incredible intelligence.
Interestingly, high intellect is not very necessary for the survival of a species.
As evidence I offer the vast array of species, past and present.

The lack of evidence of a 'missing link' causes me to conclude that man may be a mutant, a freak of nature.

I am a creationist, but I also understand that creationism doesn't belong in the science class because creationism is not scientific, per se.

With regard to 'faith', I know a great deal about cosmology, the quantum theory, and relativity (and I am a firm believer in the Big Bang, because of the astronomical data), and I must say, that many of the new theories (and some older ones) require too much faith - more faith than I can muster.

Etc, etc, etc...

Thank you.

Answer 4

You ask two different questions: about the "dollop of goo" and about the evidence that humans evolved from other apes. I won't address the "goo" issue, but there is unequivocal evidence that we evolved from apes.

There are plenty of pieces of evidence, but perhaps the best is the vitamin C gene. The vast majority of mammals can produce vitamin C within their bodies. Humans, however, can't. We have to get vitamin C from our diet (fruit and veg), otherwise we get scurvy. This is because the specific gene responsible for synthesising vitamin C is broken in humans.

Now the interesting thing is that other apes also share this problem. Even more interesting is that if we look at the gene, it's broken in *exactly the same place*. Genes are complicated, and there are plenty of places they can get broken, so it's incredibly unlikely that this would happen by chance.

Of course, the best answer for why this is, is that we share a common ancestor with other apes. That ancestor had the broken gene: both we and the other apes inherited it.

Now it gets even more interesting. Guinea pigs are also unable to synthesise vitamin C. But when we look at their gene, we see it is broken *in a completely different place*. This is exactly what we would expect, since we don't share a recent common ancestor with guinea pigs.

This is only one of the many pieces of evidence that demonstrates our common ancestry with other apes. Another really good one is the chromosomes: briefly, we have 23 chromosomes, whereas chimps have 24. When we examine the chromosomes in detail, we can see that we have one chromosome that's twice as long, and has "end markers" stuck in the middle. For more information on this, see http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=2199739

Edited to add: I've just reread your question, and noticed that you said "fossil evidence". Well, no, there isn't any fossil evidence that *proves* we evolved from chimps, but we don't expect there to be. Fossils don't prove anything - there's no way you can ever dig up a fossil and say "Look, here's the actual common ancestor" - because we can never know if that particular individual even had children, let alone children that are our ancestors. But we can look at fossil evidence that shows intermediates between humans and other apes, and that is indeed what we find. See here for a really good overview: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/

Answer 5

Buried under 200 tonnes of earth and rock ?

The same place that virtually everything else is from that period of 'evolution'. Clearly the chance of anyone discovering it depend on digging in the right place.

So does the fact that it may be difficult to find mean it doesn't exist? To some yes, they don't want it to be found. To others, it helps them keep an open mind. This sort of thing is rarely as black and white as they would like, so yes I do go on balance.

As my original answer said sometimes it's whats missing that helps guide you. As there are a lack of Human fossils amongst the earliest of what has SO FAR been discovered, people have asked rightly, where are they / where did they come from then ?

There is an 'edge' to your question which infers that we should by now have all the answers. Given the length of the period that we are attempting to study, what is a reasonable period of time to be given to study it?

Another issue for me would be a lack of proof (concrete or otherwise) to support the only other explanation offered - intelligent design / creationism. This is covered by the caveat of no proof will ever be offered, so don't hold your breath.

Given your need to ask this or a similar question every week and then bait anyone who replies you clearly have a point you wish to make, so why not just make it ?

Answer 6

Wow! it truly is great time too undesirable which you think that rubbish! there's no longer one shred of evidence for evolution. There are lots of hypothesis, guesses, defective concepts, and assumptions, yet actually 0 evidence of any form! it truly is all a hoax perpetrated upon humanity via people who might somewhat speculate, wager, use defective concepts and anticipate than have faith in a writer God. those human beings could be embarrassed approximately themselves! It does not take a scientist to have undemanding sense. fortuitously there are a staggering deal greater scientists than you have any thought approximately that do have cojmmon sense and function sound, problematic evidence in choose of advent and which blasts the shallow thought of evolution perfect out of the water. those scientists who take place to additionally be Christians, do no longer examine their brains on the door of corrupt academia because of the fact they go with to base all their bias on the ridiculous thought that there's no God.

Answer 7

You either have FAITH in religion or in science.

BOTH suffer from being man-made.

Fossil 'evidence' is as yet undiscovered. Some fossil similarities have been found.

The real answer is to be found in not only what happened BEFORE the Big Bang (theory) but why anything should exist at all.

Answer 8

As humans we will always search for answers that are beyond our understanding, that is why we came up with religion, you don't have to think too hard about it and we are easily convinced by indoctrination and brainwashing. It is a fact that we are NOT related to apes, our genes are too dissimilar. So unless you want to start up your own religeon (based on the dynamic goo), you will have to be content with the unanswerable question. You will obviously be high priest, so can I be your second in command?

Answer 9

There is plenty of fossil evidence of evolution. The problem is, convincing people such as yourself of its validity.

Here, meet our relatives:

Sahelanthropus tchadensis. 6 to 7 million years ago
Ardipithecus ramidus - 5 to 4 million years ago
Australopithecus afarensis - 4 to 2.7 million years ago
Australopithecus africanus - 3.0 to 2.0 million years ago
Australopithecus robustus - 2.2 to 1.0 million years ago
Homo habilis - 2.2 to 1.6 million years ago
Homo erectus - 2 to 0.4 million years ago
Homo sapiens - 400,000 to 200,000 years ago
(Homo neandertalensis - 200,000 to 30,000 years ago)
Homo sapiens sapiens - 130,000 years ago to present

Before them, between 5 and 10 million years ago, there was our common ancestor with the apes. This is what is romantically called "The missing link".

Of course it cannot properly be identified. Bones and fossils, as well as being rare, tend to deteriorate. Many archaeological scholars are convinced that these are early humans. Many religious people dismiss them as being either ape bones, or bones of arthritic humans, as if only humans who were arthritic were kind enough to leave their bones conveniently for scientists to find.

You say not to joke. I will not.
But I will offer you a biblical quote:

Jeremiah 5:21
: : : : Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not:

It has been paraphrased over the years, to give rise to the more relevant:
"There are none so blind, as those who will not see"

The evidence is there. Mountains of it. The problem is, you will not be convinced. This does not make evolution wrong, it makes you unconvincable, that's all.

In Galileo's time, there were people: good, honest pious people, who were driven to kill and torture other good and honest people because they dared to challenge the belief that the Sun revolved around the Earth. They, too, were using religious arguments trying to challenge scientific evidence. They believed they were right, in the face of solid facts which they simply refused to accept.
Where are they now?

Evolution is the modern day version of the Earth revolving around the Sun.
.

Answer 10

Science is NOT Evolution.Science is simply things we can SEE test and demonstrate.Evolution is a RELIGION based on faith--NO proof for it.People often say "keep religion out of schools".Well,get evolution out also!
When a person finds a bone and or fossil(my dogs do this in the backyard from time to time but tax dollars do not pay them to do it),the only thing we know is something died.Fossils and bones do NOT have dates stamped on them,and they do not talk.Noone has seen any animal change into another animal.

Answer 11

As scientific as I am, I have to admit that evolution is JUST a theory. There are plenty of holes and a lot of unknowns... not very conclusive from a purely logical perspective.

Although, if I were an anti-theistic bigot, I would put a whole lot of FAITH in that theory... and all because its in a science journal somewhere.