Re: Homo erectus, city dweller and sailor

veritas wrote:

<snip--see how easy?>

As the neurologist told me, "Just because you are 98.5% the same in
DNA structure does not prove you are kin to a particular species. It
proves that the tasks you perform require similar body parts.
Remember, a mouse has about 90% of the same DNA as you. Does that
make you part mouse? No." That is what he told me. Regards, Ken

He was wrong, or you didn't understand him. Was he a creationist or ID follower, by any chance? <shudder>

All life on Earth is related. Evolution displays that relationship in the twin nested hierarchies of life--DNA and morphology. Sort of the 'Tree of Life', but with clades instead of branches.

DNA charts that relationship. We are not mice; but we share a common ancestor with mice, albeit some time ago. We share a much more recent common ancestor with other great apes; and can be considered, as I consider us, the 'third chimpanzee'; since we share a more recent common ancestor with the other two chimp species than we do with gorillas; and a more common ancestor with gorillas than with Old Men of the Forest.

According to modern biological systematics, humans are members of each clade (think 'taxon', mostly) in our full Linnean designation:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: H. sapiens
Subspecies: H. s. sapiens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

(I would add "Life" above the Kingdom level, since we are also related to all life on earth:

* Life on Earth (Gaeabionta)
o Nanobes ?
o Acytota **?
o Cytota
+ Bacteria *
+ Neomura
# Archaea
# Eukaryota
* Bikonta
o Apusozoa
o Cabozoa
+ Rhizaria
+ Excavata
o Corticata
+ Archaeplastida
# Rhodophyta
# Glaucophyta
# Plantae
+ Chromalveolata
# Heterokontophyta
# Haptophyta
# Cryptophyta
# Alveolata
* Unikonta
o Amoebozoa
o Opisthokonta
+ Choanozoa
+ Fungi
+ Animalia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

We are much more connected, in far more interesting ways, to everything else than you are perhaps aware, or willing to allow.

Me? I do so love being hooked in to everything. :-)
.

Relevant Pages

  • SPECULATIONS ON THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE
    ... first, life originated deep in the Earth's crust, in water ... DNA/RNA systems since DNA chains, in the double helix form, are ... Third, in time, some species of DNA/RNA systems developed or evolved ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Some help with "a lack of dinosaurs post", please
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    (talk.origins)
  • Some help with "a lack of dinosaurs post", please
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    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Molecular biologists find holes in evolution?
    ... Darwin on the basis of 'pockets of species with no known relation to ... that there is no evidence of evolution from one major ... Note the careful statement of the hypothesis: a single common ancestor ... of all life. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: In the News: Expelled Exposes Plight of Darwin Doubters
    ... the common ancestor *must* have all the features ... it is simply assumed that there was a first living cell that diverged ... species diverged. ... Biology is the study of life. ...
    (talk.origins)