<HTML>Hi Paul,
> Hi guys, I am new to this board and thought I would say
> a quick hello before I type my question.
>
> HELLO
Welcome to the board.
> Right that is over and done with so, The principle of
> evolution suggests that man went from an ape, crawling on all
> fours, hidden well in under growth or protected in trees to
> us modern humans. How long this took I have no idea but my
> question is this. Why did we evolve at all?
Great question. It's not so much of a why we did but why we did not. Assume that there was only one species of organism on earth. Is it possible that a single species would remain a stable entity, never changing and always remaining the same? Isn't it more likely that any advantageous characteristic that was developed within a single member of the population would benefit their descendants over others? The thing is there are many different possible improvements that a species could develop (eg becoming taller, faster, better armour, sharper teeth/claws, adaptability to a particular environment etc.). Isn't it credible that within even a single species variation is preferable to stasis?
If 2 separated populations within this single species develop completely different beneficial characteristics (one becomes taller the other faster) if they remain separated the differnces between them will escalate. Eventually a time will come (and evolution requires a lot of time) when the separated populations are so different from one another that they are unable to reproduce with one another.
If we accept that genetic mutations occur (and nobody is doubting that not even the creationists) then we have a mechanism by which these improvements can happen. Fair enough the chances of random genetic mutation leading to a positive phenotype are incredibly rare (one in several million I gather) the point is that when it happens the benefit of such a genetic change will be quickly exploited. Just like in business anything new that offers an advantage over your competitor will be quickly seized upon and if you don't adapt in business to new developments you will eventually go under (unless you seize another advantageous opportunity to exploit a different market sector or whatever).
, surely when we
> lost all our fur we would have frozen, surley when we moved
> from hidden in undergrowth on all fours to standing on two
> legs we would have been eaten by anything bigger than a
> human.
It's not advantageous for a predator to kill all the available prey. Also alone we wouldn't have much of a chance against lions and tigers but there's safety in numbers and whatever we evolved from had the same predators to fear. Perhaps the development of a bigger brain gave us an advantage over our evolutionary related closest ancestors. Who knows for sure?
> So why are we here? In my opinion at this early stage
> in our evolution we would have been killed off due to genetic
> mistakes.
Natural selection kills off the genetic mistakes - we're just the mistakes that survived long enough to reproduce. We're here only because our genes are successful - just as the most succesful species of bacteria, insects, plants etc. are all still here.
Cheers,
Duncan</HTML>
