Peerless67
Hero Member
Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona
"Peerless you have covered the chimps and tool use very well, and hit upon one of the odd things with evolution as well, for why do we still have chimpanzees, seeing their obvious adaptability to new things? Is it a case of "arrested evolution" or is the truth about evolution far more complex? "
I am not so sure evolution is that complex, although there is something to be said for "arrested evolution" if we take the whale as an example, left the sea and became a land mammal no larger than a dog and then returned to the sea to become the largest individual living animal on the planet. So sometimes when evolutionary stages may appear "arrested" it could simply be that a niche was opened for a species to take a different route at a given time.
The chimpanzee comes from the same family we do, I would guess that there was an enviromental niche to be filled which led to the species branching off. We have no certain way to determine what that species may later evolve into. But given their intellect and obvious social awareness and tool use we could hazzard an educated guess at what that may be, and an upright walking, tool using, intellectual mammal is not so far fetched.
One day the lemming will fly ?
"Peerless you have covered the chimps and tool use very well, and hit upon one of the odd things with evolution as well, for why do we still have chimpanzees, seeing their obvious adaptability to new things? Is it a case of "arrested evolution" or is the truth about evolution far more complex? "
I am not so sure evolution is that complex, although there is something to be said for "arrested evolution" if we take the whale as an example, left the sea and became a land mammal no larger than a dog and then returned to the sea to become the largest individual living animal on the planet. So sometimes when evolutionary stages may appear "arrested" it could simply be that a niche was opened for a species to take a different route at a given time.
The chimpanzee comes from the same family we do, I would guess that there was an enviromental niche to be filled which led to the species branching off. We have no certain way to determine what that species may later evolve into. But given their intellect and obvious social awareness and tool use we could hazzard an educated guess at what that may be, and an upright walking, tool using, intellectual mammal is not so far fetched.
One day the lemming will fly ?