When discussing evolution...Monkeys might look at us and wonder why most of our hair fell out and we became obsessed with making money rather relaxing in a tree eating bananas and scratching ourselves. They probably consider themselves to be more “ evolved” than humans. It's all a matter of perspective.

Serious question. What did Adam and Eve look like if they were the first humans? If God made us in the image of him, he couldn't have been in the image of the first humans who looked like hairy apes in which Adam and Eve would have been. So, did Adam and Eve really exist?

BTW -- Humans haven't been evolving --- They have been devolving -- just look at d.c. and any city (major or not) for proof. Also BTW - Hi B.P

I’m rooting for the Neanderthals,

Homo erectus gets the prize for having stuck around the longest. Well over a million years. They even survived a prolonged African drought (over 100,000 years worth) from about 960,000 to 860,000 years ago. During that time the population fell from about 100,000 to just under a 1000 breeding individuals. Imagine a drought that lasts 100,000 years! That was almost the end of us.

Homo erectus was definitely our ancestor.

This question brings lot of interest discussions to the table. No one can really know for sure what Adam and Eve looked like, but they most likely looked similar to us with different characteristics. They obviously would have to have all the genetic information for all the different races and skin colors of everyone on earth.

And what information says the Adam and Eve were hairy apes?

In our image doesn't have to mean the same physical characteristics but could also refer to the fact that humans are conscious of our own being. I often wonder that when Adam and Eve were "clothed in skins of animals" is this referring to the flesh we wear.

According to Genesis Adam and Eve had two sons named Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel and had to go live with the "others". Brings me to to think even the ancient tribal shaman that first told the story the story did not believe it.

So, serious question as I've really not followed the evolution debate at all......... but has anyone attempted to impregnate a modern ape with human semen?

Why couldn't have Cain brought with his wife to the land he settled that was called Nod?

Ok, let me state this another way: why believe we are descended from primates just because some humans were originally built differently?

Waggler, your graph has an error, there is no year zero.

That's a fact!
If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?

When was year zero? We don't know.

I'll stick to Geneses

Not claiming that one version is true or that another version is true. Had a couple of classes in college that completely shattered any belief I had in the "science" of evolution or ancient history. Long time frames in history are calculated with radiometric dating. Something radioactive in the environment has decayed enough that we know how much of that radioactive thing is left. We know how fast it decays so we know how old it is. Except that we have no idea how much of that stuff was really in the environment thousands or millions of years ago because nobody took any measurements - so we're just guessing. And some of that radioactive stuff is moved around by water which means it could be moved in our out of a sample over thousands of years. And once we figure out how old a sediment layer is by radioactive dating and that same sediment layer somewhere else dates to a different age, we just make up a correction factor to multiple everything by to make the numbers line up nicely. But should we correct this sample up or the other sample up? Depends largely on which sample was dated first. Don't want to go back and change anything so we make the newer samples match the older samples - not knowing which one is right - if any of them are right.

Just like it's really hard to measure really small stuff accurately, it's just as hard to measure really big stuff accurately - like millions of years of history. I'm convinced it's all just wild guesses. Two teams of scientists, if they didn't collude on the answers, would get results that were orders of magnitude different on the age of old, old stuff.

Gary, nobody thinks we evolved from Monkeys. A big misconception that's been around too long.

[quote


So, serious question as I've really not followed the evolution debate at all......... but has anyone attempted to impregnate a modern ape with human semen?[/quote]

Although it's possible attempts could have been made (likely after the discovery of fermented juices) a viable offspring would not have been possible. We have 23 pairs of chromosomes while the other apes have 24.

Advancements in science in the last 40-50 years have really opened the door to getting reliable dates. I learned a lot from Donald Johanson's book "Lucy, The Beginnings of Mankind". They didn't just rely on one dating method to establish a 3 million year age for Lucy. What gives credence to the methodologies is when you get multiple techniques all agreeing with each other. In science when you claim you have a new cutting edge technology your peers (Chemists, Physicists, Paleoanthropologists, etc) are all ready to try verify or debunk the method. When they all come to agreement that the method is reliable, well, that is good enough for me.

Just for kicks, look up Argon-Argon dating for old samples. If you find a problem with how that works come back and report it.