Evolutionists I have few questions?

Question

Are we currently evolving? How so?
What happened to neanderthal? How come they are gone but gorillas arent?
Did humans ever have tails, if so why are they gone. Seems helpful.
Why are people in india hairy and people in cold regions have less hair.

K thanks just curious

Answer 1

The Pope, Catholic Church, Church of England and mainstream churches all accept the big bang and evolution!



Lord Carey the former Archbishop of Canterbury put it rather well – “Creationism is the fruit of a fundamentalist approach to scripture, ignoring scholarship and critical learning, and confusing different understandings of truth”!



Nice that christians and atheists can agree and laugh together even if it is at fundie expense!



But behind the laughter is the despair at the fundamentalists striving so hard to destroy christianity by turning it from a religion to an ideology!

Answer 2

Are we currently evolving? How so?



- Every birth is an evolution. It is a new DNA.



What happened to neanderthal?



- They didn't evolve the larynx that homo sapiens did and they could not transfer knowledge from generation to generation and died out to a superior species.



How come they are gone but gorillas arent?



- They were competing in 2 different areas.



Did humans ever have tails, if so why are they gone



- Un-necessary.



Seems helpful.



- Only if you are hanging from tree branches.



Why are people in india hairy and people in cold regions have less hair.



- The hair traps sweat that evaporates cooling the people down.

Answer 3

"Are we currently evolving? How so?"



Yes, all living organisms are always evolving. Hoow? I don't know and such a prediction would be difficult to make, even for an expert. Evolution takes too long to be easily observed in one human life-span, for the most part.



"What happened to neanderthal? How come they are gone but gorillas arent?"



Neanderthals wen't extinct as a reult of numerous factors. Among them was their competition with our species in their native habitat. Gorillas are still around because their particular circumstances have been in their favour (at least they were).



Did humans ever have tails, if so why are they gone. Seems helpful.



Humans once had tails, yes. However at that point we would not have been considered 'human'. We were probably closer to monkeys and likely still lived in trees. We lost them because we had no use for them. Can you conceive of a situation in your daily lfie in which a tail would be useful?



Why are people in india hairy and people in cold regions have less hair.



On the contrary, people in colder climates are often much hairier. Obviously more hair keeps us a little warmer, though not much with our sparse coverage.

Answer 4

(1) There is no such thing as an "evolutionist". It's not a belief system. That's like calling someone a "gravitationist".



(2) Of course we are still evolving. Man simply has longer generation times and fewer offspring per generation than most species, along with a command of tools and technology that gives us the ability to be less susceptible to our environment. Therefore we evolve slower than, say, insects or fish. Evolution can easily be seen in humans in morphology changes over time- that is to say, physical differences like head size (even in the last 300 years alone, there's a large difference)



(3) The neanderthal was in direct competition with Homo sapiens. They lost out competitively. There is some evidence that they may have also interbred with Homo sapiens (thus being more of a subspecies anyway), which means that they assisted in their own demise by breeding themselves out of existence. Humans and gorillas rarely shared an environment, so they weren't competing, though they are disappearing quickly enough now that we encroach on their habitat.



(4) Tails aren't helpful when an organism goes bipedal. Throws off balance. HUMANS never had true tails (none of the Great Apes do), but our common ancestors did. Every once in a while a latent gene gets turned on in embryonic development and a baby will be born with a rudimentary tail.



(5) They aren't. Hair distribution is actually greater in colder climates.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

The Neanderthals were the descendents of a population that had left Africa ten to forty thousand years before homo sapiens left Africa. The Neanderthals could not compete with the homo sapiens, nor could the Neanderthals survive as well as the humans could.



The gorillas that exist now do not occupy the same ecological niche as humans, nor did their ancestors (after they diverged from our common ancestor) occupy the niche our ancestor's did.



Every trait that a species carries has a chance of disappearing if it is not useful for successful procreation. Except, some traits are bound up with survival traits, and thus are carried along.



When tails were not needed for survival, they were no longer part of the necessary genes, and thus, due to genetic drift, faded away. Also, they were not bound up with other, more important genes.



Hair for warmth became less important when humans developed brains that could develop tools and knowledge to protect themselves from the cold.



Civilization has been such a tiny, tiny part of human's existence on earth, that we have not, and will not see humans evolving from our current condition.



Life started on earth about 3.8 billion years ago. Let's say that we have a movie that compresses that time span into one year - Viewing the movie would take you exactly one year, starting midnight on January 1st, ending midnight December 31st.



Each second of the film would cover 120 years.





The evolution (starting with the common ancestor of apes and humans) of humans wouldn't even start until December 31, at around 2:00 in the afternoon. For the next nine or ten hours you would watch the divergence of apes and hominids.



Finally, after watching TEN HOURS of evolution, the last 30 seconds - from 11:59:30 until midnight - would be the time that humans were on earth. Hardy much time to evolve.

Answer 7

The answer to your first question is yes. The answer to the second is, since evolutions takes into consideration many factors an tales an extremely long time, rest assured that we are evolving into a smarter, more able creature.

Neanderthals failed to evolve and so like any species that does not adapt went extinct.

We evolved from a lesser human who has evolved from lesser apes. Just as the "Greater Apes" evolved (we are in this family) so did humans.

Humans do have tails but not functional ones, apparently you have never viewed a human skeleton.

The extent of ones body hair is genetic in nature not necessarily oriented in race. Your knowledge of india's people and people who live in cold regions seems lacking if not missing all together/

Answer 8

1) Yes, we are. Well, some believe so, but there's a bit of debate in the scientific field, mentioned briefly in the second link in my sources. The first two links explain it better than I can, but natural selection is, for a fact, still going strong, if not true evolution. More on the continuing evolution of the human race in the first two links.



2) Scientists are unsure if the neanderthal is a subset of our species or another species with whom we share a common ancestor. Either way, the last known neanderthal site was about 28k years ago. It is unknown exactly what happened to them, but the time of their disappearance sort of coincides with the arrival and growth of modern humans in Europe. It might be the case that the less advanced neanderthals could not compete with the homo sapiens and died out. More on the neanderthals in my third link.



3) As another Y!A user said, the coccyx is the remnants of a vestigial tail. All mammals have a tail at one point in their development. As we evolved, it lost its original function in helping to maintain balance, and became unnecessary. More on the coccyx in the fourth link; it's a Wikipedia link, but there are more sources at the bottom of that page.



4) I suppose I don't really have a straight answer for this one! Some people contest the 'Indian/Persian people are hairy' stereotype, suggesting that the darkness of their hair tends to stand out more to the fair-haired people in colder climates. That'll be something I'll have to read up on more. The last link in my sources is another Wikipedia page, this time about body hair differences in the human race. They talk about the evolutionary loss of body hair in humans further up the page.



I hope these answers helped! c:

Answer 9

If you wanted a real answer, you would ask this over in Biology. Since you're asking it here, I'll assume that you're just looking for pats on the back from like-minded people. A joke is in order!



A neanderthal, a human with a tail and a gorilla walk into a bar. The gorilla checks Yahoo! on his iPhone and cracks up. The neanderthal and tailed human asked him what was so funny. He shows them the iPhone and says "He doesn't even know that we gorillas are almost extinct!"

Answer 10

Evolution never ceases. It may seem like that we aren't evolving right now, but that is because it takes a long time. Every single offspring is slightly different from its parents, but you won't notice for millions of years. There are lots of theories about the extinction of the neanderthal, such as competition from more modern species and that they may have been absorbed into another species by breeding with them. Neanderthal was not a common ancestor between us and gorillas, that ancestor falls further back. I do not know if the last question is a loaded question or not.

Answer 11

1) We are. Simply look at the appendix, it has gained far less use over these last 3 centuries. Also, our bodies have a few organs/bones that are completely vestigial (they have no more use) - one example is our tail bone. About a millenia ago, the tail bone was much larger.



2) There is ongoing debate. Some say we (homo sapiens) killed neanderthals and hunted them to extinction, while others think we bred with them and assimilated them to our genetic code.



3) Again, this is going back to the tail bone. We had a tail at some point on our evolutionary history, there is no doubt in this. Tail bones have 1 purpose: supporting a tail.



4) Never heard of this, though historically, it's the other way around. In Modern Society, it's less of an issue due to things like coats and air conditioning. Having hair is no longer a major issue.

Answer 12

Yes. Every species that is alive and reproducing is evolving.



If you are typical, each of your cells have about 10 or a 12 random mutations that you did not inherit from your parents. Evolution is the effect of imperfect reproduction and not everyone having the same reproductive success.



Neanderthals went extinct, except for the DNA they left behind in us as a result of having sex with our more nearly human ancestors. 99+ percent of all species that have ever lived, have gone extinct. There is no plan or rule for going extinct. It just means that a reproductive line experienced failing reproduction success, with population numbers falling instead of growing. That is as much about the environment they lived in as it is about them. Luck is a big factor.



I am not familiar with the part of our primate history, when our (and gorilla, chimpanzee, bonobo and orangutan) common ancestors evolved the tail loss. But all modern primates have inherited this trait from those common ancestors.



Traits do not evolve instantly, especially for a species that builds shelter from the environment. Hair amount is no longer a strong survival trait for humans. This trait now evolves mostly by sexual selection. If a hair is considered sexy and attractive in a given society, hairy men and women will have more and better choices of mates. Fashion trends affect such evolution as much as cold.



--

Regards,



John Popelish

Answer 13

Yes we are still evolving,because every living organism evolves and the reason why we're not seeing any major changes is because we are still a young species of about 50000 years and evolution takes place over millions of years.Neanderthal's are gone because we evolved from them!They are our ancestors.No humans didn't have tails although our great ancestors the apes had tails as they evolved into homosapiens the tail became a lost feature because it hindered them in their struggle for survival.And my closest guess why Indians are hairier then people that live in cold regions is because of the hotter climate,it has been proven that hair grows best in hot conditions,but it could also be that they don't shave their body hair at all.

Answer 14

Yes, but relatively slowly (noting evolution is a slow process to start with)

They became extinct as they were out competed by other species of hominid.

Gorillas live in forests up mountains. People, you'll note, aren't all that well suited to that environment. Neanderthals competed with humans for space, gorillas don't (although if you look into gorillas now, you'll note that wherever they come in conflict with humans, gorillas tend to lose, hence why there's so few left).

No. Ancestors of humans had tails. They've gone because they weren't helpful to a species that spent most of its time on two legs in grassland.

Your last one appears to be a gross generalisation, however I'd also point out there's plenty of cold places in India.

Answer 15

History is corrupted due to wars, the oceans etc.



Yes we are constantly evolving.



Gorillas almost became extinct there is worldwide action to prevent this happening.

The Neanderthal had a problem low numbers, and decided to live in an ice age, they ended up interbreeding with us. They technically didn't die out.

Humans in India are more hairy as there diet requires less vitamin D of all things, in colder climates we have less hair to gain more heat, but also need overall more vitamin D.



Here is a good one for evolution, in south Africa whites are getting curlier hair and an increase in freckles, and in the northern Europe the appendix is smaller and melanin is dropping in levels. In 3rd generation immigrants. this is evolution in action, South Africans are adapting to there climate, and north Europe its slower because of our lifestyles now but still apparent.



Recent scientific breakthroughs have discovered Neanderthals share 99.5 - 99.9% of our DNA, they ended up breeding with us, but were so low in numbers they died out as a separate species only.



We probably will never find where we came from, its probably under the ocean now, which if you look at frequency of fossil records, both groups increase nearer to the oceans, this means there must have been more land mass, tectonic plate movement would have erased all traces of them by now.

Answer 16

first off out hair on our body is not used as fur of an animal, the only part we have a "fur" or hair on our head is because we lose a lot of heat through our head. hair can also keep in moisture. i come from Germanic people and my family is at average 6'1 and we are very hairy



yes we are evolving still, through the age most people have grown taller with the easier abundance of food, and probably our vestigial structures being reduced (our tail bone and appendix)



neanderthal' could of been killed off by early humans or died off naturally because they do not have the intellect of homo-sapiens. gorillas have a different specietion tree' meaning we are not all from one species of apes, also they could be more adapted to their environment, thus they don't need to further involve



our ancestors, and i mean very early ancestors many different species down the tree had them' but tails are used for balance and as creatures that walk up right we don't have use for them

Answer 17

Evolution is a process over generations.

Humans have "useless" organs such as the tailbone and appendix, Plica semilunaris (third eyelid see source)



Because they are of no use anymore, the organs are slowly shrinking with each generation, eventually it wont be in the body. besides what use does a human have for a tail anyway?

As for the Neanderthal, I think they ate only meat, in which became scarce, hard to reproduce if you are starving to death.



As for the hairy in warm regions and hairless in cold, you got me there, then again I am no expert.

Answer 18

Of course we are evolving! But remember evolution isn't like aging, in the sense of being able to witness it at work over one's lifetime. The changes are small and insignificant and over a LONG period of time, but if you were able to view humanity over millions of years then you would witness it. To answer your gorilla question, evolution occurs when the environment changes and the species needs to adapt to survive. You get species that have evolved into an 'ideal' form and thus are able to survive even if the environment changes. Crocodiles, for example, have changed very little over a number of years. That does not mean that they have stopped evolving. It just occurs more subtly. Species branch off and evolve in different ways because they are subjected to other climates, food sources, etc. We probable had tails, but they clearly were not necessary for our survival.

Answer 19

Of course our species is still evolving.



You ask about tails. Don't you know that humans do have tails? We all have 4 tail bones. You mention gorillas. Did you know that gorillas only have 3 tail bones? Look up coccyx in the dictionary.

Answer 20

Yes, we are still evolving (perhaps not you). WHat do you think the tailbone (coccyx) is? It is the evolutionary remnants of a vestigal tail.

Answer 21

Evolution is a lie and bullshit, always has been, always will be