I was thinking that one of the things that puts people off to the idea of the ape origin of man (other than the religious implications) is that some people find apes revolting.
But only the hardest, meanest heart could find a baby ape revolting. They are just very, very cute.
So I propose a new version of the descent of man image (the one where the images of various stages of human ancestry are represented walking from left to right, the one that lots of people make a parody of) but each stage has a very cute baby at that stage instead.
By the way, this isn't an invitation for a creation debate, there are already plenty of venues for that argument.-- talldave, Sep 03 2008 Plush Bacteria http://www.thinkgee...eektoys/plush/6708/ [Voice, Sep 03 2008] Baby ape finds himself revolting. http://www.youtube....watch?v=AuUqSrHIHsoNot proper for work. [baconbrain, Sep 03 2008] Human & chimpanzee DNA http://www.answersi...g/tj/v17/i1/DNA.asp [Ling, Sep 03 2008] JAWS http://www.genomene...03/25/prehumans.php...this time it's evolutionary. [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 12 2009] I do hereby vigorously debate you!-- Voice, Sep 03 2008 (Urge to post bad joke...) (Fails to resist urge to post 'vigorous mass debating' joke...)-- neutrinos_shadow, Sep 03 2008 Lovely little human babies - never before seen miracles - cuter than the grown up version.-- kikad, Sep 03 2008 whOSE a cute little Chrysiogenes arsenatis? YOU are! yes you are! look at those sweet little Flagella!-- Voice, Sep 03 2008 + very cute, but I think the apes were revolting in that movie *Planet of the Apes*...-- xandram, Sep 03 2008 Humans share between 95 to 98% of DNA with Chimpanzees, depending on who you believe. Men share 96.6% of DNA with Women.-- Ling, Sep 03 2008 I think if you want to show the relationship between normal apes and us neotenous apes, you should show a baby chimp and an old human. I mean, nothing against the late, great George Burns, but as an old man he looked like a baby chimp's twin brother.-- baconbrain, Sep 03 2008 //Men share 96.6% of DNA with Women// willingly?-- po, Sep 03 2008 If you'd like to stop by some evening, I'll be happy to give you half of mine.-- baconbrain, Sep 03 2008 Actually, humans share 100% of their DNA with E. coli - the self same As, Cs, Gs and Ts.
The amount of DNA we "share" with any other species depends on how you measure things. You might equally say that A Misummer Night's Dream is 95% identical to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - 95% of the words are identical (and 100% of the letters). Or they are 50% identical (since that many sentences in one book have homologous sentences in the other), or 0% identical.
Actually, I can't really imagine why I've gone into all that, since it's really neither here nor there. Must check my dosage.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 03 2008 that's very generous of you BB.
<checks MB for a pulse>-- po, Sep 03 2008 [po]
Please put my name on the waiting list.-- normzone, Sep 03 2008 //depends on how you measure things// Yep, and it's perhaps more newsworthy to show that male humans have more in common with male chimpanzees than they have with female humans. But that can also be demonstrated by measuring the degree of hairyness, in most cases (my grandmother excluded).
That's why I said 'depending on who you believe' - I did check everything thoroughly for at least 5 minutes. See link.-- Ling, Sep 03 2008 I always wanted a chimp as a pet, and my mother wouldn't let me. She said they were very dirty and stinky. Even baby ones. My mother may be crazy, but she's always right.-- blissmiss, Sep 04 2008 We share most of our DNA with broccoli.-- RayfordSteele, Sep 04 2008 Despite my request for this to not become a creation debate, it seems like some people suffer from what I like to call "creation turrets", a compulsive need to quote memorized creationists arguments.
Weird.-- talldave, Sep 05 2008 turrets syndrome!-- po, Sep 05 2008 [talldave]: Huh?-- Ling, Sep 05 2008 The thing about this is that, well, there are at least three things actually. Firstly, neoteny is an important part of human evolution, so in some parts of the story the pictures will mainly just be ahead of time. For instance, early chordate evolution involves tadpole-like larval forms extending that stage into adulthood and at the hominin stage, the adults get more like the young too. Secondly, a lot of the stages would be slimy squirmy things of limited cuteness to the small minority of people who aren't into Japanese tentacle porn. Thirdly, some larval evolution seems to be almost unconnected to the appearance of the adult form. Fourthly, the succession of forms depicted in evolutionary iconography is more of a chaotic bush than a carefully choreographed precession of marching primates and so forth.In thisses spite though, i really like the idea, though not so much from the cuteness angle as the raw interest, so [+].-- nineteenthly, Apr 12 2009 //she's always right//
She certainly was.-- nomocrow, Apr 13 2009 random, halfbakery