nidan

I hear lots of discussion over evolution but taking a small step what do folks believe on this and why ?

D-Dogg

50,000 (edit, to 300K years, according to some sources) for homo sapiens, much earlier for human-like mammals. Lucy was like 3.2 million years ago or something like that.

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SirStefan32

Impossible to tell for sure, but my best guess would be 5000 to 6000 years.

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krepitch

Are you serious?

devilalum

According to the Mormons humans lived on earth with the dinosaurs. They have children's books that depict dinosaurs pulling plows and men riding them in dinosaur races.

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nidan

On what do you base this ?

Every bit of evidence we have indicates ranges of 100's of thousands to several million years. The only real issue is when you start calling them human ?

Note the evidence is not uncertain, as was pointed out 'Lucy' goes back millions of years. The question is could she be called human at that point

nidan

How do you explain things like remains of huts found that have been dated back to 500,000 years ago

http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/w/x/wxk116/habitat/

ajcardfan

Well, those are Neanderthal dwellings. Last time I read up on it, I thought it was pretty convincing that Neanderthals were a separate species from Homo Sapiens/Cro Magnon.

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nidan

True, I hadn't noticed that.

But like I said it's all about what you call human. I doubt we would call Lucy human

Shane

At the risk of sounding stupid.

Is there anyone here that would call a chimpanzee human? I dont remember exactly but our genes are only different by just a fraction of 1%

If the answer is no could you really call any of them human?

nidan

40yearfan

I guess it's how you define human beings. Recorded history only goes back a few thousand years. To me, that would be the start of the true human being.

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nidan

But there is evidence of real human cilivization going back at least 50k years.

However, 40 makes a good point, so what were they before that point [picking whatever date you prefer]?

D-Dogg

Please tell me you are kidding...or at the very least, completely misinformed.

I mean, are these books supposed to be literal? Or is this like Danny and the Dinosaur type books?

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