by I was asked whether I believe that humans and gorillas share a common ancestor. I did not answer the question directly, which I will do below, I hope. Note that "Keep It Real" did not answer my question, [W]hat form will life off Earth take?
Keep It Real wrote:Do you think humans share a common ancestor with gorillas scherado?
scherado wrote:Keep It Real wrote:scherado wrote:Keep It Real wrote:So that would be a "no" then. Didn't see that coming, much.
No. I didn't respond "no".
Is there something wrong with you? Which of the words did you not comprehend in, "I do not know."
I ask you outright, what form will life off Earth take? I bet it's too much for you to consider.
You do not think that humans and gorillas share a common ancestor, you "don't know" which is a negative ("no" or to put it another way "no, I don't know") to the question posed.
You, apparently, are one of those people who can't abide uncertainty. That's your problem, not mine. I've examined things over many years, I'm 57, and when I declare, "I don't know," it's after extensive consideration, decades. I'm not one of those Agnostics who hasn't labored over the evidence and just quits thinking.
I've seen the evidence and think there's something missing or unknown. Capice?
Keep It Real wrote:EDIT: what's missing?
When I wrote, "there's something missing or unknown," I was referring to the Theory of Biological Evolution, as it exists, meaning in whatever form the theory took last I checked.
When K I R asked me about common ancestry with gorillas, she made reference to a very specific claim--I won't use "speculation"--about the respective, genetic histories of what we consider to be two species.
The essential question remains unanswered no matter the truth-value of the ancestral claim. ("truth-value"==Whether it is true or false.)
There is the question, unanswered I assert, as to the origin of life on Earth ("Abiogenisis"?). This I know to be outside the scope of Biological Evolution.
Then there is the question of whether and how that first-life changed over time, immense time, into other forms and if so, then what mechanisms of change were responsible for the transformations (Theory of Biological Evolution)?
When I registered the apparently unacceptable answer, "I don't know," I was answering the question, Do I know how first-life--whatever form it took--how and by what means did it change into what we now know as the complex human body? Let us all agree on the existence of our complex bodies(1)--though we don't yet know everything about them(2). We should all agree on this second point as well. (I offer as one example of what has yet to be determined, whether the human body has a "soul.")
When I'm asked the question, "Do you think humans share a common ancestor with gorillas...?, I'm reminded that several more fundamental questions need to be answered with respect to the mechanism of inheritance. Here I refer to the well-known method of the propagation of genes as "mechanism of inheritance." Obviously.
I'll stop here to determine whether anyone understands.
