Talk:Natural Selection

Are humans apes or not?

To avoid getting into an edit war, I'm posting this here for discussion. We have two versions of one sentence:

1. "Because humans, who are related to apes, don’t need longer noses to survive."
2. "Because humans, who are apes, don’t need longer noses to survive."

Without going into reasons why, I prefer "who are related to apes," and Aleister in Chains prefers "who are apes."

What think? WHY???^{PuppyOnTheRadio} 00:59, April 16, 2010 (UTC)

Great apes. We are closer to chimps, our cousins, than chimps are to gorilla's. We apes all need to supplement "Vitamin C" (the only animals besides guinea pigs who need to do that). And just look at Arnold! Al, a few minutes later

As you're discussing your point of view....I know that some scientists want to reclassify Pan troglodytes (the common chimpanzee) and Pan paniscus (bonobo) as Homo troglodytes and Homo paniscus respectively. Others are talking about reclassifying humans as Pan sapiens. But it hasn't happened yet and to me it weakens the sentence by harkening back to "I ain't no ape so evolution is wrong!" And as to animals that need Vitamin C, you need to add monkeys, bats, several types of birds (who get their C from citrus fruit, kiwifruit and tomatoes) and some fish (who get it from algae), my friend. WHY???^{PuppyOnTheRadio} 01:33, April 16, 2010 (UTC)

Apes. Only one bat (bats may be primates, actually), I don't believe monkeys need C, the gene broke after the lemur on the great ape chain. The birds I have to check up on. As for scientists classifying anything via consensus too many of them are afraid of the controversy. But why is this even a discussion? Give me a bonobo woman over most human women anyday. Al few minutes later

I'll let you look for other sources yourself, if you're interested, but here's a few.

1. Adding Vitamin C to animal feed is so important that processes for doing it have been patented. Here's something related to United States Patent 5229147: "The coated vitamin C preparation is useful as a supplement to feeds for animals, such as, livestock, poultry and marine animals, by admixing same with the feed." http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5229147.html
2. "Certain laboratory animals such as guinea pigs and non-human primates require vitamin C in their diet." http://www.labdiet.com/pdf/Vitamin_C_Advancements.pdf
3. "Dietary algae accelerate the assimilation of ascorbic acid in fish and improve the physiological conditions related to vitamin C nutrition" is from "Effect of dietary algae on improvement of lipid metabolism in fish" in Biomedecine & Pharmacotherapy, Volume 51, Issue 8, Pages 345-348 by H. Nakagawa http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0753332297880535

WHY???^{PuppyOnTheRadio} 01:59, April 16, 2010 (UTC)

Well, phylogenetically speaking a valid taxon ought to include an ancestor and all its descendants. This results in scientists often redefining common terms to include all descendants of the common ancestor in question. In this manner, one could say humans are apes, birds are dinosaurs, etc. However, the trouble arises when going too far back on the evolutionary road, i.e. mammals are reptiles, which are fish, which are eukaryotes, which are bacteria. Clearly this method of synonymizing common terms with phylogenetic taxons is very impractical in most cases. Moreover, people who are not that familiar with biology are rather likely to misinterpret such statements as an assault on their worldview. Now, about this specific article, "who are apes" is probably funnier in context than "who are related to apes". Potentially better alternatives might be "who are technically apes" or "who evolved from apes". —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 02:05, 16 April 2010

Agh, edit conflict. In short, thanks why for the data on monkeys. I've looked it up as well, and you're right about the old world and new world monkeys. Adding 3 grams a day of Vitamin C to my diet--at separate times during the day--is one of the best things by far that I've done. That was after finding out about the genetic disease we all have. Will try to get this in before econflict. Aleister in Chains 2:14 34 seconds 16 4 mmx

I think the problem with people-ain't-apes people is that the pesky genetic closeness with chimps is the elephant in the room. We are pretty much chimps, closer to bonobos than to anything else, but with our own evolutionary slot. But that slot falls under apes, unless someone wants to avoid the many fun things that come with that. Al 2:23 16 4

Well, I'm not objecting to classifying humans in the same group as apes, I'm just saying that the common conception of an "ape" differs greatly from that of a "human". You wouldn't call a chihuahua a wolf, right? And yet it's the same species. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 02:34, 16 April 2010

Sadly, no. Human changed the wolf and bred it down to a chihuahua. I've had the pleasure of living with two wolves, training one of them, and they are the most intelligent and loving "dogs" you could ever imagine without actually living with them. I see the tragedy of humans not embracing their apehood is that humans destroy forests and oceans, etc., while apes know better. Al a few minutes later

First, what's classified as part of a species and not a species is a human-made convention. Animals got along just fine without being put into sometimes relatively arbitrary and definitely changing boxes.

As for wolves and dogs, until a few years ago, wolves were generally classified as Canis lupus and domesticated dogs as Canis familiaris. A few years ago, it was generally agreed to reclassify dogs as Canis lupis familaris. So by the arbitration of science dogs weren't wolves 20 years ago, but now are. For an authoritative report on the relationship of humans, bees and dogs, see my paper The Symbiosis of Homo sapiens, Helioanus burnupus and Canis lupus evaluated as an evolutionary paradigm shift. WHY???^{PuppyOnTheRadio} 03:17, April 16, 2010 (UTC)

Aren't apes just members of the Hominoidea super family, which includes humans. I mean we're the embarrasing uncle of the family, no matter how much you deny us we will still be there to double dip in the hummus at the next family wedding. --Nikau 09:45, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

how about we feature the talk page? Because I'm pretty sure it's about as funny if not more so than the main page?

It's Mrthejazz... a case not yet solved. 21:09, April 18, 2010 (UTC)