Rich wrote:I'm a bit confused by this image. It says human evolution, but that's not how humans evolved at all. We attained bipedalism when we were still small. And the picture seems to suggest we evolved from knuckle walkers which is most unlikely. I'm concerned the author might be a bit stupid. So stupid in fact that he believes we evolved from an animal very similar to a modern chimpanzee.
Indeed. It also implies that it was a straightforward linear progression from primitive to advanced, with a clear teleological aim - to produce a modern human. And, at that point, it ends. Because how can you improve on perfection? Lol. No, that image does not represent Darwinian evolution, but the Medieval ‘Great Chain of Being’ repackaged in a pseudo-scientific form. It shows the mysterious workings of Providence producing modern humans from the clay of the Earth.
In reality, our remote ancestors - the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans - was just as highly evolved as we are. But they had evolved to be perfectly adapted for a particular climate and a particular environment. But then the climate changed, and they - we - had to change to adapt. Some of their descendants adopted one strategy, and others adopted a different strategy. One group evolved into chimpanzees, and the other evolved into humans. And there were lots of other branches which failed to adapt successfully, and went extinct. The process was nothing like that picture.
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Marx (Groucho)