Why Humans and Their Fur Parted Ways

The New York Times (Science Times) ^ | August 19, 2003 | NICHOLAS WADE

[Junior]

What shakey suppositions? These guys did actual research and testing, and the testing bore out their hypotheses. You come along, who has never done a lick of research in this field, and really have no clue as to what's being discussed, and airily dismiss the work of actual researchers

[VadeRetro]

Hairless ape ping.

HEY!

I still have some left!

[Pharmboy]

YOU are the one who has not a clue, as you sound like a fool. For them to leap from a gene for skin color to hairlessness is a MAJOR shaky supposition. And what made US so special as to be the only primates to use this strategy for survival? But based on the deductive reasoning you've displayed so far, I would not expect a room-temperature IQ such as yours to grasp this point.

Buh-bye Junior (a good handle for you, BTW).

[Pharmboy]

You are on the money!

[Pharmboy]

Maria: dogs evolved from wolves and wolves still exist. OKAY?

[Maria S]

"Even creationists are embarrassed by such statements."

Golly! And I, too, am darned embarrassed! Wow, is my face red! It's always a joy to read how much pleasure (downright joy, actually!)my naivete gives someone else!

Meanwhile, I'll continue to believe that man was created in God's image, and apes were a separate created species that fell under the heading of "animal". I CAN accept Pharmboy's comment about dogs and wolves, because we can see how dogs have been bred over the centuries to become different animals. But they ARE all still some form of canine, they still bark, and like meat.

Thanks for the info about the website; I haven't heard of it, so I can't comment on it. There are a lot of similar websites out there, and the great counterfeitor can convince us that scripture actually means something else. I will check it out and see what and who it's affiliated with.

[Junior]

Okay, so you have nothing substantive to say, so of course you resort to personal attacks.

[Consort]

The loss of fur is part of human devolution.

[Domestic Church]

"Australopithecus terroristus or something."

Good thing I didn't have a beverage in hand! Priceless!

[Tigercap]

What does evolutionism have to do with "science". Stories relating thereof belong in non-fiction

[Pharmboy]

Perhaps you cannot read as well as reason. I gave you a specific example of their shaky supposition. Re-read my post before you say something else even more stupid...

[FourPeas]

Er, those would be my relatives.

[Sam Cree]

"And kept the pubic hair because we enjoy scratching our ba___? Give me a break."

I always supposed that we retained pubic hair to act as a cushion to mitigate friction during sexual intercourse.

[Pharmboy]

Er...non-fiction is reality.

[VadeRetro]

We didn't evolve "from" apes. According to evolution theory, we share common ancestors with apes. Apes are as highly evolved for their environments as we are.

That's a bit of a cop-out. True, we didn't evolve directly from any of the modern ape species. However, we're most closely related to the chimpanzees, with whom we share a fairly recent common ancestor. The evidence suggests that that last common ancestor probably looked a lot more like a chimp than it did like us.

"A" in the upper left above is a modern chimp skull. "B" next to it is an Australopithecus africanus from 2.6 million years ago. In fact, "B" up to "N" (a modern human) are fossil hominids of decreasing age. But "A," the chimp, which is as modern as "N," the human, seems to fit in well right at the beginning of the sequence. Again, that last common ancestor looked a lot like a chimp.

What about the grosser mischaracterization that "We came from monkeys?" An ape is not a monkey, but apes arose from monkeys maybe 30 million years ago. If you could take a time-machine voyage to 35 million years ago, the most human-looking species you could find would be some sort of monkey.

In fact, go back far enough, and the "most advanced vertebrate" is some kind of fish. Farther back, and there are no true vertebrates, only chordates. And so forth.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

...we were naked for more than a million years before we started wearing clothes.

"No. Way."

"Way, Garth"

"Party on, Wayne."

"Party on, Garth."

[e_engineer]

The hedgehog lookalike?

You're looking for this thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/855884/posts

[Sam Cree]

What are those L and M things?

[Pharmboy]

Beauty...

[FreedomCalls]

What are those L and M things?

Well, "M" looks a little like James Carville.