You're a monkey.

AronRa is a hero of mine. What Richard Carrier is to history of science Aron is to taxonomy and cladistics. Which is very high praise from me indeed.

Why are you calling me mud?

My general idea for a reply to Creationist nonsense.



Made video..

Why are there still Chimpanzees?

While I support such answers and I think Dawkins gives a marvelous answer. I'm more inclined towards a general and somewhat more complete explanation of biological evolution. As I noted in my response to the question here, and perhaps opting for an even more humorous reply.

There are generally two different understandings of evolution, one is a strawman setup to tell people that evolution doesn't make any sense at all by slandering the theory with false and untrue remarks which leads to question of why there are still other apes, whereas the other version of evolution is the real and solid science of biology. While I admire Dawkins answer for being clear and very good at explaining the error made in the question, the rest of evolutionary theory isn't obvious. From this answer and anybody asking the question doesn't really know.

Why do species diversify? Why do the species fall into a tree like that? The core problem is they don't have a good and understanding of the actual theory. They have a strawman and their strawman suggests that's a good question. To *REALLY* answer the question, one needs to give a quick and understandable run through the actual theory at it's most basic. I think Darwin gave the most thought to how to explain evolution to the uninducted. I think his explanation from Malthus to the struggle for existence, and then a clear explanation of taxonomy is going to be the quickest road to Rome. With this nugget of truth, it can quickly be used to expand and show why the question is wrong with the given sort of taxonomy explanation.

A more generalized reply to 'y tey stil monkie'.

Explaining natural selection and evolution in an easy and understandable way does seem to be the way to go. But, I think there might be something to the idea of outrage.

YOU CHRISTIANS THINK I'M RELATED TO MUD!? I'm dirt? Fuck you. Calling me dirt. You're just full of insults. Modified mud. Am I mud on my father's side or my mother's side?

I am great ape, a primate. You're saying I share no relationship with any of nature. Nature is just there for no real reason? I'm not a part of it? I'm just modified dirt? I have no connection with the transcendence of nature, with the beauty, and majesty of the natural world? I'm just a bit of fucking mud, like on the bottom of my shoe? Oh, and apparently I'm evil mud. Evil mud-man suffering the sins of my mud-ancestors who ate magical fruit from a magical tree on the advice of a talking reptile. Here's a question for you Christians, if mud was made into man, why is there still mud?

Fuck you. I ain't mud! You can hate yourself and think you're dirt, but don't drag me into your sad little fairy tale. Where does your morality come from? Humans, chimps and other apes have well developed and highly evolved moral sense. Mud doesn't! It slides down hills killing without mercy or remorse. I share 97% of my DNA with other great apes, how much DNA do I share with dirt? None. It's dirt!

I'll think for you poor misguided animals. I'm sorry that you're so confused and despondent that you deny being one with the tranquility the natural world. Your separation from nature is so great that you think you're dirt. I feel so sorry for you. You should know, that you are special and billions upon billions of less fit cousins of your direct ancestors died for your genes. Their sacrifices within the natural world allowed the bootstrapping gradual rare genetic improvements over several billion years, which led to you! You're not dirt, you're the end result of a million generations of winners, each one having the good fortune to mate and reproduce! You're one of the lucky ones.

Explore. Reason. Understand.

Update: added the why is there still mud question. Few modifications, generalized. I am probably overdoing it now...

Been picking on ignorant people lately...

You'd be astounded how often people think evolution says they evolved from a monkey. I'm thinking of getting a generalized reply to the claim:

Common ancestry suggests that humans have common ancestors with monkeys. This common ancestor seems to have lived about 30.5 million years ago. It isn't that one species or group turns into another but the variation within the previous group in the past lead to all the successive species.

Humans are members of the following groups in descending order of size.
cellular organisms; Eukaryota; Fungi/Metazoa group; Metazoa; Eumetazoa; Bilateria; Coelomata; Deuterostomia; Chordata; Craniata; Vertebrata; Gnathostomata; Teleostomi; Euteleostomi; Sarcopterygii; Tetrapoda; Amniota; Mammalia; Theria; Eutheria; Euarchontoglires; Primates; Haplorrhini; Simiiformes; Catarrhini; Hominoidea; Hominidae; Homininae; Homo

Japanese Macaques are members of the following groups in descending order of size.
cellular organisms; Eukaryota; Fungi/Metazoa group; Metazoa; Eumetazoa; Bilateria; Coelomata; Deuterostomia; Chordata; Craniata; Vertebrata; Gnathostomata; Teleostomi; Euteleostomi; Sarcopterygii; Tetrapoda; Amniota; Mammalia; Theria; Eutheria; Euarchontoglires; Primates; Haplorrhini; Simiiformes; Catarrhini; Cercopithecoidea; Cercopithecidae; Cercopithecinae; Macaca; Macaca fuscata

Common ancestry doesn't suggest that humans came from monkeys but rather humans came from Catarrhinis and monkeys such as Japanese Macaques also came from Catarrhinis some time in the past. And where variation with species are minor, those small variations in separate groups over the last 30.5 million years have lead to greatly varied species such as humans and gorillas on one side of the divide and macaques and baboons on the other. The theory of evolution suggests that the slight variation between species such as the gray and red squirrels could become as great as the variations between the different primates. It isn't that we are related to monkeys, but rather that if you go back far enough, we are related to all life on this planet.

The process by which organisms change is called evolution, and the mechanism is natural selection. Given any population of crickets for example if allowed to reproduce such that every offspring were able to grow to adulthood and have more offspring themselves the entire world would be several feet deep in crickets within a few generations. Therefore there must be forces which are restricting the ability of crickets to carry out their natural exponential growth. Predation, access to food, access to mates, etc limit the cricket population. Now, if in this necessary struggle for life a change were to occur in a cricket's DNA which was beneficial to it's possessor in this struggle for life, that cricket and those crickets with that gene would do better than those organisms without that gene. If it were not useful it would either quickly die or be less successful in the struggle for life.

What once was very little variation, over eons becomes very large variations. So what once was several millions of years ago only a slight change within a species become a small change between two species such as gray squirrels and red squirrels and as time goes on and more and more beneficial changes are added into the genomes as they better and better adapt to different and changing conditions of life, independently and among the great tapestry of lifeforms and selective pressures.

Taken to the intellectual limits this suggests that all organism on the planet are related and explains the biology, genetics, design, development, distribution, and every other aspect of life on this planet.

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Somehow I think it needs a toss in with the theory of evolution by natural selection. A sentence or two with some oomph that if thought about would explain the theory.

update: added a couple paragraphs describing the main thrust of the theory.

Algorithmic Darwinism?

Generally evolution isn't just a theory but an algorithm for beneficial change in direction of the selection. So if variations occur within a species and any of those variations are, for any reason, beneficial to that organism it will increase at a rate greater than that of the average population. So whatever seeks to keep a population down will keep only a certain subset of the population down. The population which can avoid being naturally selected against will flourish. If there is a general ability (like that in DNA) to change and engineer very specific structures and organs and organisms then this process will spiral up creating organism of ever increasing adaptation, complexity, and functionality. Further as every species is undergoing this process they all will play off each other in complex and wonderful ways like newts so poisonous that they could kill thousands of people with a drop of poison and snakes that regularly eat them. Like cheetahs running quickly and gazelles running about as quick. Like the antlers of a deer that weigh so much that they make the deer far easier prey and the females who mate with the males with the largest antlers. It's a very simple process but, even a cursory look will show that such a process would work, and when we look at nature there are abundant artifacts that are only explained by exactly that process.

It's all a work in process. Whatever explain the theory in an understandable way in a pretty short read is certainly the most fit variation of this.

Dance Monkeys Dance.

I think I never bothered to post this. Sorry for the oversight. I'll dig up a copy of all our base soon too.