Apparently humans and neanderthals did NOT breed...

[DRDS]

At least according to this new article....

http://news.yahoo.com/humans-neandertha ... 25773.html

[PaulSacramento]

Theories and more theories...

I found this interesting though:
The team also calculate that humans split from chimpanzees -- our closest primate relative -- around seven to eight million years ago, earlier than the six-to-seven million years ago that is a common estimate.

Thing is that there were no chimp for "humans to split from" back then.
This is a classic way in which people get screwed up views of evolution.
Man did NOT "split" or came from Apes, Apes and man MAY have shared a COMMON ancestor.
Not the same thing at all.
In short CA ( Common ancestor) beget something and that something "split" into two other "somethings" and one of those lines became Man and the other Ape.
( I am sure someone can fill in the blanks better than I).
Humans did NOT split from Chimps.

[Ivellious]

Paul, you are correct. No one says that chimps existed first, and humans evolved out of that group. At least from what I've read/learned, humans and chimps evolved from the same species of Great Ape, which is why we are classified as "cousins". Modern day chimps/apes and humans are believed to all be descendants of now-extinct Great Apes.

I really don't like reading news articles about scientific things unless that news source is specifically a science publication. Yahoo and similar sites rarely if ever employ journalists who actually have scientific training in the fields that they write about, leading to errors like what Paul pointed out. It might seem like minor errors or ways of saying the same thing, but in fact they can be very misleading as to what is really trying to be said.

[RickD]

PaulS wrote:Humans did NOT split from Chimps.

That's true Paul. Genesis 1:26-27

26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth,b and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Man was created specially, by God, in His image. Of course, that's just my interpretation of those verses. Someone can certainly believe man and ape evolved from a common ancestor, but I don't see how scripture backs up that belief.

[Murray]

What exactly are neanderthals classified as? If I remember my biology classes correctly aren't they on like a completely evolutionary tree than us?
And then I hear somewhere that human and neanderthals breeding caused us to develop immunities to certain diseases, but if we did breed
with Neanderthals then Neanderthals are on our evolutionary tree... So, somebody needs to get that tree straightened out.

[Ivellious]

I'm not sure what "evolutionary tree" you are talking about, Murray. Neanderthals are a "human" species (one of the many, at least). Most "humans" preceded homo sapiens (us), but there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that neanderthals lived around the same time and place as the early homo sapiens. This link shows basically what I learned about the hominid family:

http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2010 ... n-tree.jpg

As you can see from this, neanderthals are indeed a different branch of hominids, but are very closely related to humans.

[Murray]

Oh, all it took was a little reading in wikipedia to answer my question. I didn't think that Neanderthals were part of the genus homo, but i guess they are.

[PaulSacramento]

PaulS wrote:Humans did NOT split from Chimps.

That's true Paul. Genesis 1:26-27

26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth,b and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Man was created specially, by God, in His image. Of course, that's just my interpretation of those verses. Someone can certainly believe man and ape evolved from a common ancestor, but I don't see how scripture backs up that belief.

Well, if I can play the "devil's advocate":
Both Man and Ape came from the earth, right?
Earth being the common ancestor/link to all life.

[Murray]

PaulS wrote:Humans did NOT split from Chimps.

That's true Paul. Genesis 1:26-27

26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth,b and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Man was created specially, by God, in His image. Of course, that's just my interpretation of those verses. Someone can certainly believe man and ape evolved from a common ancestor, but I don't see how scripture backs up that belief.

Well, if I can play the "devil's advocate":
Both Man and Ape came from the earth, right?
Earth being the common ancestor/link to all life.

But it does not state that god created apes then we slowly evolved form them. Of course theres a lot of things the bible is not crystal clear on thus leaving it up to your own interpretation and beliefs

[PaulSacramento]

PaulS wrote:Humans did NOT split from Chimps.

That's true Paul. Genesis 1:26-27

26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth,b and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Man was created specially, by God, in His image. Of course, that's just my interpretation of those verses. Someone can certainly believe man and ape evolved from a common ancestor, but I don't see how scripture backs up that belief.

Well, if I can play the "devil's advocate":
Both Man and Ape came from the earth, right?
Earth being the common ancestor/link to all life.

But it does not state that god created apes then we slowly evolved form them. Of course theres a lot of things the bible is not crystal clear on thus leaving it up to your own interpretation and beliefs

On a serious note and not getting into a Genesis debate.
I don't see God communicating to ancient man 1000's of years ago and being able to make Man understand evolution since it seems hard enough for US to do so right NOW !

[Murray]

He could have gone with the south park explanation

"In the beginning we were all fish, swimming around in the water. And then one day a couple of fish had a -special- baby, and the -special- baby was different so it got to live. So -special- fish goes on to make more -special- babies, and then one day a -special- baby fish crawled out of the ocean with its mutant fish hands, and it had -intercourse- with a squirrel or something, and made -special- frog-squirrel. And then that had a -special- baby which was a monkey-fish-frog, and then this monkey-fish-frog had -intercourse- with another monkey, and then that monkey had a mutant -special- baby that -had intercourse- with another monkey, and then that -had intercourse- another monkey and then that made you. So there you go, you're the -special- offspring of five monkeys having -intercourse- with a fish-squirrel, congratulations.

[PaulSacramento]

He could have gone with the south park explanation

"In the beginning we were all fish, swimming around in the water. And then one day a couple of fish had a -special- baby, and the -special- baby was different so it got to live. So -special- fish goes on to make more -special- babies, and then one day a -special- baby fish crawled out of the ocean with its mutant fish hands, and it had -intercourse- with a squirrel or something, and made -special- frog-squirrel. And then that had a -special- baby which was a monkey-fish-frog, and then this monkey-fish-frog had -intercourse- with another monkey, and then that monkey had a mutant -special- baby that -had intercourse- with another monkey, and then that -had intercourse- another monkey and then that made you. So there you go, you're the -special- offspring of five monkeys having -intercourse- with a fish-squirrel, congratulations.

Classic South Park !!

[RickD]

Well, if I can play the "devil's advocate":
Both Man and Ape came from the earth, right?
Earth being the common ancestor/link to all life.

Is that your theory of evolution? Earth is our common ancestor? You don't think mankind was specially created? Because if mankind evolved from something else, that doesn't leave room for mankind to be different from other animals, does it? How in evolution, did mankind receive a spirit?

[Byblos]

Well, if I can play the "devil's advocate":
Both Man and Ape came from the earth, right?
Earth being the common ancestor/link to all life.

Is that your theory of evolution? Earth is our common ancestor? You don't think mankind was specially created? Because if mankind evolved from something else, that doesn't leave room for mankind to be different from other animals, does it? How in evolution, did mankind receive a spirit?

Why, is God not capable of infusing a rational soul in an already existing animal whose first cause is God himself anyway?

[RickD]

Well, if I can play the "devil's advocate":
Both Man and Ape came from the earth, right?
Earth being the common ancestor/link to all life.

Is that your theory of evolution? Earth is our common ancestor? You don't think mankind was specially created? Because if mankind evolved from something else, that doesn't leave room for mankind to be different from other animals, does it? How in evolution, did mankind receive a spirit?

Why, is God not capable of infusing a rational soul in an already existing animal whose first cause is God himself anyway?

Oh no. I'm not saying God isn't capable of that. God is also capable of creating the heavens and earth in six 24 hour days, but I don't think scripture says that either. God created Adam, and then placed him in the garden. I don't see how that fits into Theistic Evolution. I'm not trying to disagree for the sake of disagreeing. I'd like to know how TE explains the first human being, who is a spiritual creature. When no other spiritual creatures(besides angels) existed prior.