So let me get this straight... (evolution/origin of man question)?

Question

Some early homonid started walking upright and the rest of his friends didnt. His friends evolved into the monkeys we know today and he alone evolved into present day man? I say "he alone" because most agree that we evolved from a common ancestor (correct me if I am wrong). How exactly did he reproduce if he is our lone common ancestor? If his upright walking was better for survival, then why didnt his friends do it or why werent they killed off (thus no present day monkeys)?

Answer 1

Populations evolve, not individuals!!!!!

Answer 2

"Some early homonid started walking upright and the rest of his friends didnt."

    Gorillas, chimpanzees, organatans and monkeys can walk upright. Humans are the only ones that always walk upright and have the bone structure to do so.

"How exactly did he reproduce if he is our lone common ancestor? "

      This assumes that suddenly one individual was born able to walk while the rest of his race couldn't. That's not how things work. It also assumes that this individual had DNA so different fron the other's that he couldn't breed with them.

Try this: Look at the clothing styles of the 1950s. Compare them to todays. Would you claim (with the straight face) that  "Suddenly some teenager started dressing in todays fashions while the rest of their friends stayed with poodle skirts."? It's easy to see the process by which clothing changed from that of the 1950s to 2008 styles. There's no need for missing links either.

As was pointed out in another reply, there's a number of possible explanations for walking erect. All of them show that there was some survival advantage to doing so.

Huh? "Java Man"? Somebody must be reading a very old book. Homo Erectus was Java, Peking and Heidleburg "man" One site in China has produced 45 skeletons and nobody calls him a "missing link."

Answer 3

There are currently about 12 different theories about what prompted the origin of bipedalism, from sexual display, to threat posture, to the aquatic ape theory. The human evolutionary tree is not quite as straightforward as you seem to think. There are various off-shoots or branches where some lead to further development then die out, and others continue on to become the direct ancestor of modern man. So far there is intense debate about when hominins started to walk. Current theory places it in the Miocene period with Sahalanthropus tchadensis, however there is intense debate surrounding this as the skull found is distorted and it is almost impossible to determine where the skull sat in relation to the spine.

The further back in time you go, the harder it is to distinguish whether a hominin should be classed as human ancestor, or ape ancestor as the distinguishing characteristics are harder to find. Not only that, but there is a huge gap in the fossil record for 12 million years ago to 9 million years ago.

Bipedalism was most likely, originally a behavioural trait, than a genetic trait. This is because early humans like Lucy (Australopithicus) were not fully bipedal, as hominins began walking on two legs more, the skeleton began to shift into the more modern anatomy we have today. It is not a case of one "guy" doing it and others not. There is evidence that several different hominins who co-existed could all walk upright.

Answer 4

u got it rite

Answer 5

Never anywhere did they say out of millions of primates, only one evolved into modern day homonids. True, we all have a common ancestor, but not one.

Answer 6

It's hominid. We didn't evolve from monkeys, but apes. Evolution takes place out of necessity. Also, you're speaking in absolute terms... we have been evolving for millions of years. The earth is over 4 billion years old. When we say "a common ancestor" we don't mean "one guy".

Chimps and gibbons walk on 2 feet when circumstances demand it too. There are several competing hypothesis about why bepedalism evolved. You need to take a human evolutionary biology class.

Answer 7

Ok, look at it this way.  Compare the ape society like your school days.  What was it like. Bullies picking on wimps, right? Well, the bully apes kept pushing the wimps apes out of the trees. The wimp apes had to go away and do their own thing.  Well, who are the wimps? Nerds, brainy people who go on to accumulate wealth and power(Bill Gates). We are those wimpy, nerdy apes.

Answer 8

He reproduced with other's of his species.  Just becuase they weren't "walking upright" like he was, didn't mean he could have s*x with them.  He passed on down his walking gene and...

Answer 9

One animal didn't start walking upright.  That is not how evolution works.  It is more likely that they became adapted to both life in the trees and life on the ground. As they spent more time on the ground, they became better adapted to it an less on the trees.  They would first only be able to travel short distances between trees.  All apes can walk upright and bipedally for short distances.  It probably took millions of years to totally leave the trees and many probably didn't.  The robust austrlopithicines were fully able to walk in a bipedal fashion but likely spent much time in trees based on their curved fingers.

Answer 10

We don't have a lone common ancestor.  We all do have common ancestors, though (mitochondrial Eve, whatever they call the earliest male ancestor, Genghis Khan).  It's like how all of my cousins and I have the same grandmother, but she's not our only ancestor.

So it wasn't just one dude.  It was a group of hominids that became humans.  And there are lots of reasons why our line became humans and the others didn't.  For one, we evolved in a different environment than gorillas and chimps.  We're savannah beasts, and they stuck to the trees.  And, finally, it wasn't like one day, someone stood upright and thought that was pretty cool.  It was quite a bit more gradual than that and required some pretty crazy physiological changes.  Our feet are very different from our tree-dwelling cousins.  We also had to develop an arch in our backs, and women's birth canals and pelvis had to change.  Recent scientific studies have shown that these sorts of changes can happen rapidly, but we're talking over generations, not within one person's lifetime.  Evolution only acts on generations, not on individuals.

Human evolution is a fascinating study, and I highly recommend reading about it.  There's a lot out there, and there's plenty written for laypeople.

Answer 11

Think of it socially. If your dad walked, you're more likely to walk. If your dad took you to baseball games, you're more likely to enjoy baseball.

As for genetics --

Look at the thousands of different types of birds. Why did some evolve to be wrens and some vultures and some pet parakeets? They're all derivatives of the first winged creatures, but they evolved with different traits.

Look at the different types of people. We're all human, but we don't look alike. Blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes, grey eyes.

If two blue-eyed people have a baby, it will be blue-eyed. If one parent has brown eyes, the baby might have brown or blue depending on the genes. Over time, one population will be predominantly brown-eyed (ie Nigeria) and one may be predominantly blue-eyed (ie Sweden).

So, our common ancestor's descendents naturally look quite different after millions of years.

Upright humans and monkeys evolving from a common ancestor is the same concept as human populations evolving with different eye colors -- just on a much much grander scale!

Hope that helps. It's not a traditional scientific answer but I hope it illustrates the point!

Answer 12

No, I'm afraid you don't have it straight.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life...

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/bein...

A primate was born with a mutation that made walking upright work better for that being. That being was still part of the same species as it's family and group, etc.

That mutation was passed down. In fact, that being was more successful in leaving surviving off-spring, and the offpring that inherited that particular mutation were more successful than their sibs.

The mutation became more widespread over a gabunch of time.

The off-spring that didn't get the mutation still successfully reproduce, leaving decendents who themselves had various mutations, leading to their evolution into their current forms.

That first walker was still similar enough to be able to mate.

One doesn't decide to walk upright; they're born for upright walking. Thus, that being's friends had no choice.

But there's no reason to wonder that they weren't killed off. They left descendents, who successfully reproduced, etc. to this day.

There's no knowing the s*x of the first upright walker; no reason to assume it was male.

Answer 13

Apes to Humans - The Java man that was suppose to prove this.  Java man in nothing more than a skullcap, a femur bone, three teeth and imagination.  By todays standards, it would have disqualified.  The femur didn't belong to the skullcap, the skullcap was distinctly human and reflected a brain capacity well within the range of humans living today.  This was not an ape-man, but a true member of the human family.  Henry Gee, a chief writer for Nature said "To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a linage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story."

Answer 14

Virtually all cells of every living thing (plants, animals, and humans) contain tiny strands of coded information called DNA. DNA directs the cell, telling it what to produce and when. Therefore, much of your appearance and personality is determined by DNA you inherited from your parents.

In human cells, the nucleus contains 99.5% of the DNA. Half of it came from the individual’s mother and half from the father. Because both halves are shuffled together, it is difficult to identify which parent contributed any tiny segment. In other words, half of this DNA changes with each generation. However, outside the nucleus of each cell are thousands of little energy-producing components called mitochondria, each containing a circular strand of DNA. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) comes only from the mother. Where did she get hers? From her mother—and so on. Normally, mtDNA does not change from generation to generation.

DNA is written with an alphabet of four letters: A, G, T, and C. One copy of a person’s mtDNA is 16,559 letters long. Sometimes a mutation changes one of the letters in the mtDNA that a mother passes on to her child. These rare and somewhat random changes allow geneticists to identify families. For example, if your grandmother experienced an early mutation in her mtDNA, her children and any daughters’ children would carry the same changed mtDNA. It would differ, in general, from that in the rest of the world’s population.1

In 1987, a team at the University of California at Berkeley published a study comparing the mtDNA of 147 people from five of the world’s geographic locations.2 They concluded that all 147 had the same female ancestor. She is now called “the mitochondrial Eve.”

Where did mitochondrial Eve live? Initial research concluded it was probably Africa. Later, after much debate, it was realized that Asia and Europe were also possible origins for the mitochondrial Eve.3

From a biblical perspective, do we know where Eve lived? Because the flood was so destructive, no one knows where the Garden of Eden was.4 However, Noah’s three daughters-in-law, who lived only a dozen or so generations after Eve, began raising their families near Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey—very near the common boundary of Asia, Africa, and Europe. (Each of us can claim one of Noah’s daughters-in-law as our ever-so-great grandmother.) So, it is not surprising that Asia, Africa, and Europe are candidate homes for mitochondrial Eve.

Likewise, when similar words, sounds, and grammar of the world’s most widely spoken languages are traced back in time, they also seem to originate near Ararat.5 Another convergence near eastern Turkey is found when one traces agriculture back in time.6  

When did mitochondrial Eve live? To answer this, one must know how frequently mutations occur in mtDNA. Initial estimates were based on the following faulty reasoning: “Humans and chimpanzees had a common ancestor about 5 million years ago. Because the mtDNA in humans and chimpanzees differ in 1,000 places, one mutation occurs about every 10,000 years.” Another erroneous approach began by assuming that Australia was first populated 40,000 years ago. The average number of mitochondrial mutations among Australian aborigines divided by 40,000 years provided another extremely slow mutation rate for mtDNA. These estimated rates, based on evolution, led to the mistaken belief that mitochondrial Eve lived 100,000–200,000 years ago.8 This surprised evolutionists who believe that our common ancestor was an apelike creature that lived 31/2 million years ago.9

A greater surprise, even disbelief, occurred in 1997, when it was announced that mutations in mtDNA occur 20 times faster than had been estimated. Without assuming that humans and chimpanzees had a common ancestor 5 million years ago or that Australia was populated 40,000 years ago, mutation rates can now be determined directly by comparing the mtDNA of many mother-child pairs. Using the new, more accurate rate, mitochondrial Eve lived only about 6,500 years ago.10

Is there a “genetic Adam”? A man receives from his father a segment of DNA which lies on the Y chromosome; this makes him a male. Where did your father receive his segment? From his father. If we all descended from one man, all males should have the same Y chromosome segment—except for rare mutations.

A 1995 study of a worldwide sample of 38 men showed no changes in this segment of the Y chromosome that is always inherited from fathers. Had humans evolved and all men descended from one male who lived 500,000 years ago, each should carry about 19 mutations. Had he lived 150,000 years ago, 5.5 mutations would be expected.11 Because no changes were found, our common father probably lived only thousands of years ago. While Adam was father of all, our most recent common male ancestor was Noah.

For completeness, we must also consider another possibility. Even if we all descended from the same female, other women may have been living at the same time. Their chains of continuous female descendants may have ended; their mtDNA died out. This happens with family names. If Mary and John XYZ have no sons, their unusual last name dies out. Likewise, many other men may have lived at the same time as our “genetic Adam (or Noah).” They might have no male descendants living today. How likely is it that other men lived a few thousand years ago but left no continuous male descendants, and other women lived 6,000 years ago but left no continuous female descendants, and we end up today with a world population of 6 billion people?  Extremely remote!12

Yes, new discoveries show that we carry traces of Adam and Eve in our cells. Furthermore, our common “parents” are probably removed from us by only 200–300 generations. All humans have a common and recent bond—a family bond.  We are all cousins.

http://www.creationscience.com/onlineboo...

Answer 15

Yeah thats a good question, it could be a theory thats fallible; maybe thats why they came up with the "missing link" as a scapegoat.