survival of the fittest

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   mecheilposted 13 years ago

   fit - fitter - fittest
   
   i know evolutionists claim they once roamed the world as well, and that the excavated remains prove so. but really, where has the fitter ones gone?
   
   i've been wondering... we see apes and men coexist even down to this day, but why can't we see the other group? it's perplexing that the less fit apes still exist, they abound in different kinds, but the fitter ones weren't able to make it.

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      mecheilposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      seems nobody knows anything about evolution at all. i hope to hear some explanations and proofs from the advocates themselves.

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         Castlepalomaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Most professional scientist believes in evolution and that man evolved from apes. Most people believe man is older than 180, 000 years ago, Only odd christians believe thant began back in in 4004 BC like it is written in the Bible,
         
         Monkey man wins

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            mecheilposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            i agree that many scientists believe that man evolved from apes, and that there are supreme being believers who think man began only a few thousand years ago. but i think my question was, where has the fitter ones gone when the less fit are still here?

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            wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Which of the apes do they claim that man evolved from?  I was not aware that any of the great apes (man, gorilla, orangutan and chimpanzee) were around when man first appeared on earth.
            
            My (limited) information is that all the great apes shared a common ancestor, but that animal was most definitely not an ape.  It would, in time, become all of the ape family (Hominidae) but cannot be classified as an ape itself.  It was too primitive.

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               kephriraposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               That's correct, humans did not evolve from any animal alive today.

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                  wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  That was my understanding, that our closes common ancestor died out a long, long time ago.  Meaning we did not evolve from apes.
                  
                  The only times I hear that argument, that we came from apes, is from creationists using an emotional appeal (I don't want daddy to be an ape, so the whole idea is just silly) and the occasional person ignorant of the concepts behind evolution.  Never from an informed person that understands even a little of biology and evolution.

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   wildernessposted 13 years ago

   I cannot think of any animal that could be classified as "the fittest" that has not survived.  Can you give me an example?
   
   Most animals become extinct because of a change in their environment (including other animals in the term).  In that respect, they are not "the fittest" as others survived when they didn't.

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      mecheilposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      please look at the diagrams shown in evolutionary textbooks - those images of human descendants could perhaps be used as examples.

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         wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         ???  Australopithecus died out, replaced by a smarter, bigger version.  How could you say that Australopithecus was more fit to survive?
         
         Neanderthal died out - I've seen speculation that it was because it could not talk.  It didn't have the physical apparatus to do so.  As a species it was replaced by CroMagnon that could and did communicate with its members.  That communication made it more fit to survive.
         
         What makes a species "most fit" is not always visible, and "most fit" usually applies only to a limited environment or to a particular niche in that environment.
         
         Unless I'm missing your point?

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            mecheilposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            yes, museums are showing those species along with hundred million others. i was actually hoping those fossils to provide a clear picture of life in the past. geologic records, however, still provide no clear picture of a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution. we've been leaping from specie to specie.
            
            branching out from a common ancestor, through millions of years, should lead us to more diverse fossils that clearly lead to modern man, other great apes, and the rest of the full-blown living creatures, but all we have is a bunch. the rest were all carefully catalogued and identified.

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               wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Highly unlikely we will ever find that complete fossil record.  Fossils that old are simply too rare and too hard to find. 
               
               As you note, the best we have now is a very incomplete record of a few species.  While that record continues to grow, it will never have them all.

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                  Castlepalomaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  You could say dinosaurs are the fittest animals ever if you took the earth's life span and set it into one calendar year. Then dinosaurs would have lived 3 months on earth, where man has only lived 10 minutes.
                  
                  Some Dinosaurs still have survive up to today. Are they bigger, better, faster, smarter or the fittest? Dinosaurs are Fittest for sure.

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                     mecheilposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     no doubt about that when it comes to strength and agility.

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                     wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     Dinosaurs were indeed the fittest animal at the time.  They were not, however, fit enough to survive massive, global wide climate changes - that honor went to the small mammals.  That they survived longer than any other creature does not mean that the few left are more fit than others, however.
                     
                     Only time will tell.  Will they continue to survive or will newer creatures, perhaps not evolved yet, replace them?  The ultimate test is survival, and there will always be a better creature come along in time.  As environments change, animals must also change or die, and most cannot adapt quickly enough to survive a large change. 
                     
                     As a species (as opposed to a whole class of animals) cockroaches may be the most successful of all time.  They have adapted to nearly every environment and have been around for a long time.  Only man occupies more different environments, and his numbers does not even approach that of the roaches.

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                  mecheilposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  there is this cambrian period, dubbed to be the period wherein all major groups of skelotonized invertebrates first appeared in our planet in the most spectacular diversity as recorded, extending for around 10 million years. however, i'm disappointed that paleontologists were not able to find progenitors from that era.

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               Shadesbreathposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Well, you have two choices:
               
               1. Look at the massive, literaly billions of pages of varied research being independently gathered around the world showing example upon example upon example of random mutation leading to adaptation and genetic success in so many hundreds of thousands of species dating back for thousands of years on every continent...
               
               OR
               
               2. Cling to the magical answers offered by the current dominoes-like iterations and translations of the flaking scrolls that describe Bronze Age religions.
               
               Your call: anecdotal sheep herder stories dating back to before the discovery of bacteria or the combined effort of hundreds of thousands of highly disciplined scientists using modern tools and record keeping as they seek to disprove every last hypothesis of their science peers and yet, inescapably, all coming to the same conclusion for two centuries now.

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                  mecheilposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  the fact that most mutations, in scientific and medical studies, are damaging to the organism seems hard to reconcile with the view that mutation is the source of raw materials for evolution. nonetheless, speculation is free.
                  
                  i guess, having to choose from between the options you've given is unavoidable. evolutionists and creationists are both eager to find out which is true. let's add to that eager group, the scientists.
                  
                  science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely the assumption that what, after long effort, could not be proved, to take place today had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past. on the other side, creationists also struggle to prove the existence of the pillar of their faith, stumbling before loopholes presented by their own beliefs and acts.

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                     wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     What cannot be proved?  That evolution continues today, as in bacteria mutating to a bacteria more able to survive in the presence of penicillin, or that animals come from previous versions of other animals?
                     
                     While we cannot, of course, find fossils for every creature that ever lived, the conclusion that animals evolve and change is inescapable.

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   kessposted 13 years ago

   Scientist play the role of the expert, but truly have not a clue about the things which they speak about....
   
   This obvious when you can see ignorance at both ends of their thinking,inexplicable beginning and endings...and gaps of ignorance fill with absurdities....
   
   If they had laid a proper foundation in the beginning they would know that each specie was created exactly as it is...each with it own variation a peculiar characteristics and where there is the ability for adaptation it was also create so.
   
   
   Only man possesses the power to transform himself and any other specie, and this can be achieved only through great difficulty because it requires a believing mind and man's very nature is a doubt.

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   Randy Godwinposted 13 years ago

   A recent discovery of a small lemur fossil has been shown to be one ancestor of modern man.  Neanderthal man survived for a long time before being displaced by cro-magnon man.  It is unknown whether they died out naturally or was eliminated because of competition for food.
   
   All of the present day primates-chimps, gorillas, man, etc. descended from the same original source.
   
   Who's to say which of these species are the fittest in certain environments?  Could you climb a tree as fast as a monkey if a lion is on your heels?

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      wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      "Survival" is the judge of the fittest.  Perhaps your little lemur was (is) the most fit - it had to change to do it, but in becoming man it has won the battle.  Man exists in more habitats than any other large animal - about the only one he has not "colonized" is the water world.  All temperatures, all terrain except the very highest peaks (where he travels but does not live).
      
      Man has, and will continue, to destroy all other species.  Most of the larger land animal species exist only as man allows it because they cannot compete and survive when man decides he wants them dead.
      
      Can a man climb a tree faster than a monkey?  No - he just shoots the lion.  As individuals some will become cat food, but as a species he wins hands down.   The lemur, through adaptation and evolution wins!

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         Randy Godwinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Cockroaches are said to be capable of surviving almost anything including worldwide destruction by nuclear devices.  There will always be a few of them to perpetuate the species.  Perhaps they should be regarded as the fittest! 

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            wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            In the ultimate test, survival, they may well be the fittest.  Lord knows, we can't eradicate them!

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      Castlepalomaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I don't care for guns, my line of defence from the Lion would be, he would be slipping on my sh**

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         wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         

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         earnestshubposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         A fine method of defense!

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            Castlepalomaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Or make sure another guy is slipping on it, behind you as well.

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