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What came first? The chicken... or the egg? But more importantly... how did it procreate?

They say humans evolved from apes (chimpanzee's iirc); but procreation was possible because genetically they were (and in some ways still are) extremely similar (amedor is living proof :s). However when scientists talk about this form of evolution; the main principle for it appears to be based around the way that we walk (up right). That in itself; is certainly a change; but on the grand scale of how different we are quite small. (just sit there; list the differences; and ask why (we speak the way we do; have no fur (as such); no tail; etc).


But then if we look back to 'the beginning' (ignoring the vast majority of theories as to how life began (we are aliens and this is not our plant... honest)) and go via the assumption that we 'evolved' from microscopic organisms and such... how did they get here?

Furthermore; its these organisms that are supposed to have evolved into all the life on the planet; and a genetic mutation resulting in a change occurs *extremly* rarely. Furthermore; what is the possibility of two organisms having the same genetic mutation in the same place and being of seperate sex's? (asumming to start with every life-form on the planet wasn't asexual; and the need for a partner to procreate was shall we say essential).

And since examples could be thrown up all day to question the theory of evolution; how many mutations would be required to go from single celled organism to human?

This is my random thought for the day... Discuss

I'm nothing like a chimpanzee

nibs wrote:What came first? The chicken... or the egg? But more importantly... how did it procreate?

to quote part of an old joke

look at the one who looks the most annoyed and youll get your answer

[quote="nibs"]They say humans evolved from apes (chimpanzee's iirc)]


please please PLEASE don't get Gandelf started again!

/Ankh

Ankh Morpork wrote:please please PLEASE don't get Gandelf started again!

/Ankh

we must!

ewwe ah ah AH AHH!

[quote="nibs"]What came first? The chicken... or the egg? But more importantly... how did it procreate?

They say humans evolved from apes (chimpanzee's iirc)]
The thing to bare in mind is how utterly vast the universe is, when you consider how many different planets there are made up of different combinations of chemicals and such you can realise that with all those combinations and all those chances that it's pretty likely that eventually you're going to get the winning combination (i.e. Earth and it's species).

Also when talking about life and something that's concious, seperating what's living from whats dead the other thing to remember is that whilst we class ourselves as being alive, when you break it down to a base level we're simply just another combination of elements working together in harmony in much the same way as rain pours down and evaporates to form clouds only to rain down and start again - yet we don't think of rain water as living. Of course we're a far more complex combination than that and I guess the middle ground between the more simple systems such as that and the complex systems like us would be plants. When the skies and the basic systems that are the earth were created relatively easily early on is it not only the logical progression that given much more time more complex beings such as plants and animals too would form?

On top of that you have to take into account the system of survival of the fittest, for example the animal in the species with the longest neck would be able to reach plants and eat to survive that others couldn't, he would reproduce and eventually a member of his family also would have a slightly larger neck again and survive even easier whereas the ones with the shorter necks would possibly starve - when you look at a system like this over massive time spans you can begin to realise that you get animals like giraffes with extreme necks.

I think the key to understanding it all is to break it down, and realise that there is no magical force that is life or the spirit and that it's a basic set of systems that just happen to work well together. The biggest difficulty I think people have with understanding evolution is the sheer scale of everything involved - the amount of time, the number of chances it took to get things right and then finally that when the first steps occur it gets easier and easier for evolution to occur.

i think that the egg came first. the chicken that was born from the egg was the result of a mutation, and he couldnt appear before his egg. therefore, the egg came first.

does that make sense outside of my head? i hope so.

Science is your friend... be kind to it.
The Origins of Life
Genetics and Evolution

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Fun thing: We share more then 98% of the genes with chimps; we even share about 50% of the genes with bananas which the chimps and we eat...

Ankh Morpork wrote:please please PLEASE don't get Gandelf started again!

/Ankh

Or did Monkey come first, or was he born from an egg on a mountain top?

autopoiesis

p.s. did anyone notice Xest has turned into a bufferfly? (look at his photographs)