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Originally Posted by G10
Human altering into another species over a given period so that it is detached from the human species, (e.g, monkey -> Man) that to me is evolution.
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Actually, the way I understand evolution is this:
Code:
primitive___/ Less primitive Monkey
monkey \ Even less primitive monkey
\ still less primitive monkey
\__/
\ sophisticated monkey (homo sapiens)
Once a species develops enough diveristy and the various species separate the follow different development path due to different environmental, individual and genetic mutations. Eventually the difference are such that the subspecies are no longer able to inter-mate (is that a word?).
I saw an interesting thing on national geographic. They showed evolution in action, in a span of just a few years. This, in short, is what happened:
A species of some insects lived on an island. Females lived on one side of the island, while males on the other. They met only periodically to mate. Some of the male insects were were more handsome than the others, although both groups were genetically the same species. The femal insects refused to mate with the ugly types and so the species was going on pretty much unchanged for as long as the could determine through fossils (don;t remember the timeframe, I think it was in 100's of years).
Then some kind of undersea volcano blew a part of the island up destroying all the handsome buggers, while the ugly ones remained alive. The ladies had no choice so they mated with those they would have rejected before. Within a couple years a new species developped, with some individuals genetically incompatible with previous generations of their own genetic source, but able to perpetuate their own, now brand new pool of genes.