In the beginning...reverse evolution.

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chrismb
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In the beginning...reverse evolution.

Post by chrismb »

Just some thoughts I had today, the like of which seem to be enjoyed on this forum:

I was debating in my thoughts just now why it might be that the original hebrew Genesis begins by naming god as 'elohim', which I understand to be a female plural and a word with strong associations with 'coming from the sky'.

The commentary that we evolve from apes does not appear to be definitively demonstrated. It may simply be that we share common ancestors and that they sit on another path. Another question is, could earth-like apes have evolved, in a 'negative' sense, from extraterrestrials of a more advanced nature, but 'devolution' needed to occur to make the species more robust to living on earth, possibly by integrating genetically with the native species. [Clearly, capacity for genetic engineering preceedes the capacity for inter-stellar travel, at least as shown in the technological development of our species.]

That is, if a more 'advanced' species arrives in a hostile environment and starts dying out, then those that survive might well be the more primitive variants of a more sophisticated original, or are genetically engineered to be so (with several different variants of varying remaining sophistication so as to see which ones last). Also, an advanced civilisation like that will be more advanced in being able to recycle, so there's no reason to have left any artefacts in one piece. Maybe systems are designed in the future [viz., 'were designed in the past'!] to automatically recycle themselves, hence no evidence of this history remains, and/or there were considered to be good reasons not to leave behind any hints of this 'legacy' so as to permit a new and refreshed species to develop without it trying to 're-learn' the bad habits of the past.

[Maybe this all happened 65 million years ago, and to start off with the dominant lizard species (which seem more suited to widespread terrestrial living that soft, warm, squidgy mammals) had to be killed off. Or maybe that was just a prelude to a later arrival - you'd want to kill off hazardous species before you get to a planet so as to give it a chance to kill them all and condition the planet to your own conditions, than after you've arrived.]

Carl White
Posts: 476
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:44 pm

Re: In the beginning...reverse evolution.

Post by Carl White »

chrismb wrote:Just some thoughts I had today, the like of which seem to be enjoyed on this forum:

I was debating in my thoughts just now why it might be that the original hebrew Genesis begins by naming god as 'elohim', which I understand to be a female plural and a word with strong associations with 'coming from the sky'.

The commentary that we evolve from apes does not appear to be definitively demonstrated. It may simply be that we share common ancestors and that they sit on another path. Another question is, could earth-like apes have evolved, in a 'negative' sense, from extraterrestrials of a more advanced nature, but 'devolution' needed to occur to make the species more robust to living on earth, possibly by integrating genetically with the native species. [Clearly, capacity for genetic engineering preceedes the capacity for inter-stellar travel, at least as shown in the technological development of our species.]

That is, if a more 'advanced' species arrives in a hostile environment and starts dying out, then those that survive might well be the more primitive variants of a more sophisticated original, or are genetically engineered to be so (with several different variants of varying remaining sophistication so as to see which ones last). Also, an advanced civilisation like that will be more advanced in being able to recycle, so there's no reason to have left any artefacts in one piece. Maybe systems are designed in the future [viz., 'were designed in the past'!] to automatically recycle themselves, hence no evidence of this history remains, and/or there were considered to be good reasons not to leave behind any hints of this 'legacy' so as to permit a new and refreshed species to develop without it trying to 're-learn' the bad habits of the past.
Sorry, no. Genome sequencing has demonstrated that we are most definitely linked to the other primates. The chimpanzee is our close relative. There is even easily traced commonality with such organisms as fruit flies and round worms. In fact, phylogenetics is building up a picture of the tree of life, showing when divergences between species occurred.

So humanity isn't an exogenous species, in that, being human, we are mostly composed of DNA sequences that already occur throughout nature anyhow. What I've wondered occasionally is whether an alien species might not have landed and toyed genetically with the apes, giving a species a final nudge into sentience. Who knows, the Garden of Eden may have been a lab, where the new humans were provided with all of their needs. Then they got kicked out into the real world and had to toil.

After all, our mitochondrial DNA seems to indicate we all descend from a common female ancestor. Eve?

Most likely, we just sort of happened, though.

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

There have been lots of interesting findings lately and the picture is constantly changing. E.g. it seems rather likely that the homo sapiens hat a gene transfer with the homo neanderthalensis.
So we do not have just one direct line but multiple lines that split and later merged again. Just recently they discovered yet more and further back dating remains of yet another ancestor of ours. I find all this very exciting and wished I had more time to keep myself up to date on all this.

chrismb
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Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 6:00 pm

Re: In the beginning...reverse evolution.

Post by chrismb »

Carl White wrote: Sorry, no. Genome sequencing has demonstrated that we are most definitely linked to the other primates.
Not sure that counters what I am saying. I am not aware the evidence shows us to be 'decendants' of apes, only that we share common ancestors. (So I agree we can be shown to be 'cousins', but not 'sons'). I'm asking if those common ancestors may not have been 'more advanced' than us both. Evolution is merely about survival, and so evolution might take a highly intelligent being and make their subsequent generations 'more stupid' if the more stupid ones end up better survivors. I don't see that the theory of evloution teaches us anything counter to that possibility.

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

There is no indiciation whatsover for the existance of a "more intelligent ancestor".
While I believe that we do some degeneration happening in todays society, I dont think that in the very distant past there ever were conditions that favored less intelligence over higher intelligence, when it came to fertility rates.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

Skipjack wrote:There is no indiciation whatsover for the existance of a "more intelligent ancestor".
It stemmed from the biblical observation 'the many from the sky'...

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

It stemmed from the biblical observation 'the many from the sky'...
I would hardly lable those fairy tales invented by some beduines a few thousand years ago "evidence".

Carl White
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Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:44 pm

Re: In the beginning...reverse evolution.

Post by Carl White »

chrismb wrote:
Carl White wrote: Sorry, no. Genome sequencing has demonstrated that we are most definitely linked to the other primates.
Not sure that counters what I am saying. I am not aware the evidence shows us to be 'decendants' of apes, only that we share common ancestors. (So I agree we can be shown to be 'cousins', but not 'sons'). I'm asking if those common ancestors may not have been 'more advanced' than us both. Evolution is merely about survival, and so evolution might take a highly intelligent being and make their subsequent generations 'more stupid' if the more stupid ones end up better survivors. I don't see that the theory of evloution teaches us anything counter to that possibility.
It sounds like you're asking whether a highly intelligent species may have previously evolved here and either died off or left.

Who knows? My personal opinion is that it's unlikely, given that there are seemingly no artifacts of a previous advanced civilization (i.e. remnants of buildings, tools or whatever). They wouldn't recycle everything, after all. Although if humanity were to suddenly disappear, most evidence of our civilization would be gone after a few million years.

If it were a truly extraterrestrial species arriving and degenerating, there could be no interbreeding and so no common ancestor with the endogenous life.
Last edited by Carl White on Sun Oct 11, 2009 5:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

BenTC
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Post by BenTC »

chrismb wrote:I was debating in my thoughts just now why it might be that the original hebrew Genesis begins by naming god as 'elohim', which I understand to be a female plural and a word with strong associations with 'coming from the sky'.
Very interesting. I often consider that Greek chariots of the gods were alien aircraft misinterpreted by ancient peoples. If the ETs were just visiting, they would have the technology to track of all their items and clean up after themselves.
The commentary that we evolve from apes does not appear to be definitively demonstrated. It may simply be that we share common ancestors and that they sit on another path.

Another question is, could earth-like apes have evolved, in a 'negative' sense, from extraterrestrials of a more advanced nature, but 'devolution' needed to occur to make the species more robust to living on earth, possibly by integrating genetically with the native species.
The idea that we evolved from "apes" is colloquial. Humans did not evolve from any living animal. Yes we did share common ancestors, as shown here http://redapes.org/science/could-orang- ... relatives/.

I think that extraterrestrials would have been able to execute their devolution faster than the fossil records show. But I don't think they would have left "themselves" more stupid. However they could have fiddled with indigineous life - but note that humans are not the only smart species, eg crows (and dolphins, etc)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/6948446.stm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 173540.htm

The demise of dinosaurs is thought to be due to rising oxygen levels, from 10% to 23%, currently around 21%. For humans 60% is toxic. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 080102.htm

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

Skipjack wrote:
It stemmed from the biblical observation 'the many from the sky'...
I would hardly lable those fairy tales invented by some beduines a few thousand years ago "evidence".
Oh, absolutely. I guess my thoughts are teasing arguments for the disproof, rather than the proving, of it. If some folks insist on sticking to the bible then could you lead them through this argument and force them to accept the extraterrestrial notion posed as a possible reality? This is just Sunday[-school] mental exercise on quiet boards...nothing more....

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

If we were descendents of some advanced alien species, we would not share genes with even the most primitive of lifeforms on earth as we are.
So in order for this to be true, all life on earth would have had to evolve from those advanced aliens. A degeneration from a life form more evolved than us humans to a fruitfly seems rather unlikely.
Evolution happens via evolutionary pressure. The lack of evolutionary pressure can lead to a accumulation of defect genes. Still as soon as conditions change the pressure becomes higher again, evolution should settle in again. We have no evolutionary pressure at the moment in our society due to our advanced technology. So here degeneration is possible. Would our civilization crumble and fall as a result of the degeneration, technology would die with it. Then evolutionary pressure would emmediately settle in again and evolution would go its normal ways.
Therefore I doubt that a degeneration on the scale proposed by Chris would be possible.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

BenTC wrote: The demise of dinosaurs is thought to be due to rising oxygen levels, from 10% to 23%, currently around 21%. For humans 60% is toxic. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 080102.htm
I always wondered if, in fact, the dinosaurs died out because they used up all the oxygen. If plants can make it, why couldn't the dinosaurs breate it all up? I was under the impression the O2 levels were much higher in dinosaurs' time, some didn't even have active lungs to speak of, so high was the O2 level. Happy to be corrected on that, with references..

BenTC
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Post by BenTC »

This is interesting.
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/H ... ttes.shtml

#3 shows how repeats in junk DNA allow our direct recent ancestors can be tracked.
#9 may be the intervention of extraterrestrials - but what a thing to suggest ;)

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

Skipjack wrote:If we were descendents of some advanced alien species, we would not share genes with even the most primitive of lifeforms on earth as we are.
Why do you say this? Surely if an alien species turned up and needed quick adaptation for their future offspring, then engineering-in native genetic adaptations in-vitro to their own genes that they knew to bring intellect and sentient capacity would be the way to do it.

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

Surely if an alien species turned up and needed quick adaptation for their future offspring, then engineering-in native genetic adaptations in-vitro to their own genes that they knew to bring intellect and sentient capacity would be the way to do it.
Yes, but they would only modify coding DNA, not junk DNA and then I dont think the simillarities would go as far as they do. Because they would have had to pretty much removed all of their own DNA to achieve those...
Not all of our genome is actually used. Some is "ballast" that we carry arround as remands of evolution. It is not coding for anything though (though it can happen that it does code again through mutations).
I also want to point out that it is highly unlikely that evolved species from another world have any likeness with us down to the proteins. They might not even be organic to our understanding.
A genetic compatibility of any kind seems therefore a very far fetch.

If anything (and I would even say that would be a far fetch), aliens would have created all life on earth as some kind of gigantic experiment maybe (I am getting some "Hitchhikers Guide" moments here)...

As a related story:
A popular german scifi novel series called Perry Rhodan made the suggestion the other way round. All humanoid civilizations in the galaxy came originally from earth. The original humans, "lemurers" were set back into stone age as a punishment for time experiments by the "time police".
100.000 years later humans move out into space again and run into their own "offspring" civilizations. Those offspring civilizations were originally earth humans that were genetically modified to be more adapted to their new colonial worlds and that later lost all memory of their original "homeworld". Ironically it is one of them that brings FTL- space travel back to earth, when they get stranded on the moon.

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