You're a Monkey's Nephew or Niece
In their famous debate over Darwin's findings about evolutionary biology, Bishop Wilberforce asked T.H. Huxley whether "It was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey?"
Recent genetic research suggests that this was a pretty good question after all. Apparently the ancestors of humans and chimps may have engaged in a little hanky-panky several million years ago. The hybrid offspring of this primate love match eventually evolved into modern homo sapiens.
Thought experiment: Crossbreeding between modern chimps and people would not likely produce (assuming it worked at all) fertile offspring because we now have 23 chromosome pairs and chimps have 24. I want to be very clear that I am not recommending that anyone try this experiment.
In response to Wilberforce's witticism, Huxley austerely replied "he was not ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor; but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth." Still sounds good to me.
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Does anyone know if this sheds any light on the debate between the single-origin hypothesis (or Out-of-Africa model, or Replacement Hypothesis) and the multiregional hypothesis?
Or is this recent finding totally unrelated?
“”It’s the only explanation that we could imagine,” he said. “But there may be others that we can’t imagine.”
Touched by His noodly appendage.
Hey! I sent this in much earlier today. No recognition? My seconds will call on your seconds.
I guess this means that Mick Jagger was right: He is a monkey.*
Ron, I recall some sort of proposal that we cross humans with apes to get the prehensile feet. The idea was that we’d do better in zero gravity with such characteristics. Guess it might be easier than they originally thought to pull that off 🙂
* Yes, I know, chimps aren’t monkeys. Why would you want to ruin my joke that way?
“Crossbreeding between modern chimps and people would not likely produce (assuming it worked at all) fertile offspring because we now have 23 chromosome pairs and chimps have 24. I want to be very clear that I am not recommending that anyone try this experiment.”
Tried it. Didn’t work. Just ended up with a half-wit son who’s sole interest seems to be in marking his territory and preening for the cameras.
emme, I don’t think so. This Chimp Love period would appear to predate the exodus of Homo Erectus from Africa, which is the time period when the debate is set.
“emme, I don’t think so. This Chimp Love period would appear to predate the exodus of Homo Erectus from Africa, which is the time period when the debate is set.”
Gotcha. Thanks.
One of the researchers commented on NPR this morning that the interbreeding pre-ancestors were closer to each other at the time than either was to chimps and humans today. Further, he said that to compare this ancient interbreeding with that of today’s notions of human and chimp would be inappropriate from a genetic standpoint.
Now pass me the bananas.
I firmly believe in human/ape hybrids. I played Rugby when I was in college.
PL:
Homo erectus..
heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh
It would be more pleasing to us if we used the term ascent rather than descent when talknig about our remote ancestry. Risen from rather than descended from.
Mr. Nice Guy, one does wonder, with a name like that, just what that progenitor of man was really up to.
And Homo habilis? So-called “handy man”? What’s that about?
Man on monkey! What will Senator Santorum say?
fishfry,
Why, he’ll say, “Stop that monkey business?” Whatever else would he say?
Considering the chimpanzee is the animal with which we share our most recent common ancestor, I don’t see what all the fuss is about, especially with the media spin that “chimps and humans got it on”. Of course our ancestors interbred, if you go back far enough our ancestors are of the same species. The same holds true for humans and squirrels, sharks, earthworms, and slime molds.
For all I know this was covered in Bio 101, but I never took it.
Is there a lay-accessible explanation for evolutionary change in the number of chromosomes? I find it counterintuitive– it requires discrete rather than continuous and gradual change, and seems to cut one population off from the (I would have thought advantageous) ability to breed with a larger number of partners. How and why does a whole chromosome disappear from a generation’s genetic makeup?
[NB: This is a request for genuine biology education, *not* some kind of disguised anti-evolution thing.)
God thought chimp-man love was icky and issued a rare intervening miracle?
ANYONE who can say ‘homo erectus’ without giggling takes themselves way too seriously.
Humans have 23 chromosome pairs because 2 pairs of chromosomes fused. The evidence seems to point that chromosome 2 was born from this fusion.
The whole issue is covered in detail here
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html
Well, the whole thing was actually due to a massive, chromosomal orgy. One thing led to another, and we were down a whole chromosome.
Now dance, monkey boy, dance.
JT Levy, the argument that evolution is slow and continuous is from the 1800s. Darwin was making the point that species did not show up by miracle. Today it is commonly accepted that evolution occurs both in fits and starts as well as slowly and gradually. A change to a single gene can have a very large effect. Having an unusual number of chromosomes is actually quite common. For instance, Down’s syndrome is the presence of 3 chromosomes 21s (instead of 2). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneuploidy#Trisomy for common chromosome abnormalities.
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