Gorilla's genome has been deciphered

I think this is the next step to get us closer to figuring out what happened to our genes 50,000 years ago BBC News - Gorilla genome could hold key to the human condition


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Very interesting, thanks for the link.

So it seems that between 200.000 and 50.0000 years ago we developped the ability to think and become creative, while most of the other apes either didn't or in some cases apparently got stuck in a very early stage. Chimpanzees and gorillas show complex behaviour and the ability to think in rather abstract terms, too, but they obviously didn't make the progress we did. I think with dolphins it's still quite controversial.

I wonder where consciousness and self-awareness fits in though. The ability to reflect upon yourself and the meaning of life, the universe and the number 42. While there is scientists who think that even mice have a form of consciousness, there is other theories that it's a rather senseless by-product of human brain evolution which developped maybe as recently as a few thousand years ago.

Most animals get by quite well without pondering their fate and fearing the future. They seem to react to the enivronment without their brains sending signals to an fro in order to make events conscious. Often more effectively than we do. And it does happen with us, too, when we act instinctively and the event becomes conscious only seconds later. So what's the point of having this self-awareness thing? To build civilisations and go to war? To be able to start flame wars on the internet?

I find it a bit difficult to accept that we humans developed "consciousness" as part of some Darwinian process. However, the discussions of the alternative processes always get a little heated

Yup. And you get filed in the "creationist" drawer in no time. But only because I have my problems with that model of explanation that doesn't mean I think that humanity started with Adam and Eve some 8.000 years BC.

I think animals plan for the future, the squirrels nut hoard springs to mind.
But ive seen magpies after eating their fill, take bread and hide it in leaf litter etc to retrieve later when they are hungry again, and my dogs bury bones after they have had enough of them.

They certainly remember the past and use other indicators to extrapolate the present.

We take our two chihuahua's out on sunday, in lieu of the walks the big dogs get, and they know sunday morning that todays the car day, they exhibit behaviour like stomping by the front door only on sunday.

They all use the sun to tell the time, they get a breakfast meal and a main meal at 2:00pm and at 2:00 they tell me its time, its rather clever how accurate they are, but daylight savings changeover throws them out, because the sun is now in a different position in relation to clock time, so i feed them an hour early/late and over the course of a few days adjust it by 15 mins till they are back in synch

is it possible to watch or listen to programmes via iplayer outside the UK? because I have seen alot of things on there I would have posted links to but did not because I assumed that they would not be available to all the forum users (there are few things more annoying than being told about a great show and not being able to watch it.)

So please some one from outside the UK reply and let me know if you can use the BBC iplayer and if you can, I will post links in future thanks in advance

also talking of clever Crows watch this video!

I havent listened yet, but will try

Ive seen lots of doco's on crows, i have an interest in animals that use tools and Crows do

This one even seems to be using a tool for entertainment

Busy crow snowboards on rooftop using jar lid as snowboard [video] - National online videos | Examiner.com

And this

First of all I do not agree with the 50,000 yr old paradigm of humans evolving...I think the human race is MUCH older than that...
Second, if you know more than the basics of our dna then you are aware that they have discovered genes that were slid in on the side instead of changing through evolutionary patterns ... I think either A.) something big happens every so often that makes our genes take a quantum leap so to speak , B.) someone has tampered with us repeatedly over time, or C.) all of the above.
This is how we left our so called cousins in the ape world in our dust. IMO
If you aren't aware of this side winder gene issue you should look it up but you may have to really do some research to find it , it seems things that academia can't explain they don't want us asking about. But it was published and was not disputed by academia as fact.

Han said: (there are few things more annoying than being told about a great show and not being able to watch it.)

I agree. I actually found a youtube video on a show called Mrs. Browns Boys. It made me choke on my tater chips. There's a bit with a stun gun and a telephone that was hilarious. Not to mention the vibrator and ....well anyway we can't get it here in the U.S. and it is really funny. Sorry didn't mean to hijack.

I am going to hazard a guess that the scientists who discovered and decoded DNA were very much "believers" in the theory of evolution. In other words the discovery of DNA was due to our understanding of evolution.
Like all theories there are disputes over some "details".
What I am getting at is you can not use DNA as a reason to argue against evolution, they are one and the same.

So thank you for the offer of "intelligently designed" coolaid but I am not thirsty.

p.s

please could you post links or sources as I would be interested in this hard to obtain "information" you speak of.

Im sure whats being refered to is this

Human evolutionary genetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And while i know you are not a fan of Loyd Pye, his intervention theory attempts to explain this fusion as being artificial in nature, he essentially contends that when we do our own gene splicing today, It leaves behind markers that show where the splice was done, and that those same indicators are present in our genes where this fusion take place.

Personally i'm open to the ideas in intervention theory



Now again you can take Pye's conclusions with a grain of salt if you want, but the data is correct.
Science as he says puts these differences down to natural mutation, But historically the creationist theory was defended vigoursly against darwins theory of evolution for a long time, so too would intervention theory face similiar hurdles in displacing evolutionary theory.

maybe I will need some coolaid after all, to wash down the Pye!

in all seriousness mike "intervention" is one thing but a statement like

could not be made by a person who has a scientific understanding of evolution as they would know that Humans are Primates!

Just to be clear "so called" is another way of saying false, untrue or deceptive, as in the phrase "so called friend".

I guess its open to interpretation, he didnt say they or humans are not primates,
But your point is valid, even if his theory is correct, even if we are hybrids, we would still share a common ancestor and thus be cousins in the literal defintion of the term.

None the less our second chromosome is a fusion of 2 , that are seperate in other primates.
Imo Intervention theory is a possible explanation for this.

Im a big fan of David Brin, and his Uplift series. in the following blog he discuss the concept

Sentient Developments: Will we "uplift" animals to sapiency?

there is also a mention in the comments section of Mac Tonnies

Well Lloyd Pye nor Dr. Leir (which will be mentioned in the excerpt I am adding) are not who I learned this information through , though it is fact. Also just to clarify the statement of normal evolutionary process that I said earlier means "gradual evolutionary process".
Furthermore, I made the comment of our "so called" cousins , the apes because I find the theory that we evolved from an ape type species (only) a little hard to believe, just like when they told us we came from fish...they are still just guessing and until they find that "missing link" there is no hard evidence to prove the theory is 100 % correct. Yes, we are a type of primate, but who can explain how we got to be so smart and "evolved" while all the other primates are still pretty much the same? No one, hence the missing link or is it the missing piece of history?
Here's the gist of the dna info...
Dr. Leir explores recent genetic research that there are unexplainable anomalies in human genetic history and in 2003 it was discovered that 223 genes do not have the required predecessors on our geonomic evolutionary tree. These extra genes are completely missing in the invertebrate phrase. Therefore scientists can only explain their presence as recent in evolutionary time scale, and comment that this was not through gradual evolution, vertically on the tree of life, but horizontally as a ‘side ways insertion of genetic material’. Significantly these 223 genes are two-thirds the difference between the chimpanzee and Homo sapiens and include important psychological and psychiatric functions. How did humanity acquire such enigmatic genes? Dr Leir and other researchers believe the answer may well be extraterrestrial genetic intervention!
*Please note that Dr. Leir did not discover these anomalies, genetic researchers did.
For anyone who is interested in Dr. Leir's take on all of this hre is the link
The Canadian National Newspaper: Doctor says 223 Genes in Human DNA are Extraterrestrial in origin
Peace

My mistake i thought Han was quoting Pye,
However imo Chimps and other primates are our cousins, Just looking at them is enough for me, and the DNA confirms it.

However the odditys in our DNA pose some interesting questions, that may indeed be answered by the intervention theory.

My personal pov is this, usual caveat this is an idea not an answer, i'm full of the former, and almost totally lacking the latter.

Using tools isnt what sets us apart from the other critters here, other species use them.
What makes us stand out is the generation and utilisation of external energy sources, thats the one thing only we do, and manipulating energy sources is a prerequisite for star travel.

The moment we started using fire, our card was marked for uplift.

Cavemen make lousy dinner guests, just as wolves make lousy housepets, the obvious answer just as we have with domesticated dogs, is to hybridise them to become smarter, and have better temperments.
The end result being social and intellectual parity, an ability to relate to each other

I dont discount thats whats happened to us

Good thread now is it possible that humanity breed with an instinct human species which had been on the planet much longer? Furthermore, could they have inhabited the ocean or underground? It might be Darwinism or ET ? Maybe its a combination?

Thats certainly a possibility, although a lot of the intervention hypothesis seem to favour gene splicing as oposed to breeding as an explanation for the odd things we are seeing in our DNA.
The theory being that as we get better and better at gene splicing, we are recognising the same markers for artificial insertions in our own DNA