yanno, genetically, researchers can trace our evolution and development based on the mitochondria DNA in our cells

and ALL humans are descended from one single individual mother somewhere back in time

Technically, from a taxonomic standpoint, we did come from monkeys.

Youtube's AronRa explains it rather well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6TEDuDD3Zs

from a taxonomic viewpoint but that just an arrangment based on characteristics

mitochondrial DNA tracing can pinpoint specific evolutionary changes in time

DNA tracing pinpoints the specific point in time when hominids left Africa and each point in history where they changed becoming asian or aboriginal or anglo

they even can tell a point in history where the race almost became extinct and a DNA "logjam" appeared before branching out to diversify

apes and humans are almost the same thing but there is a branch in the mitochondrial history where they diverged. apes are not our ancestors but are our brothers

and I still contend that we are decended from rats

I think everyone's obsession with our DNA relationship to apes is only due to the fact that Darwin was published...oh yeah, and also died, long before the genetic mapping of domestic pig DNA. With this knowledge, he may have been singing a different tune altogether.

Does the fact that pig DNA is an even better match for human DNA, so much or so that pig heart valves are completely compatible for use in human hearts, as well the fact that they are large animals with tiny, seemingly useless tails, change anything in this discussion for anyone?

Is it just me, or did the tail on that boy in the video look more like a pig tail than a monkey's?

I never meant that we came from modern apes, as I'm aware tha humans and great apes split quite some time ago; most recently being the split from chimpanzees (our common ancestor with them, that is).

We can't have come from modern-day monkeys, and anyone who claims so would be misunderstanding evolution. What I was saying, in a mildly humorous manner, is that our distant, DISTANT ancestors were classified as monkeys.

I'd agree with you that we descended from ratlike creatures. Not quite like the rodents today mind you, but small, ground-dwelling mammals.

It was somewhere between 150-250 thousand years ago. How they determined how large her population was is puzzling though.

My understanding is that in order to be classified as an ape not having a tail is kinda important. Humans being apes do not have a tail so to speak. There are cases where flesh and nerve can continue to create a tail like appendage. Humans and Chimps last common ancestor is around 6-7 million years ago. So Chimps have had just as long to evolve into what we see today as humans have. Gorillas and Orangutan longer. There are apes that are relatively small. Gibbons, I believe, are less then 100lbs. Which hurts the idea that large apes would have little or no use for a tail. I also think to say we evolved from rats is a bit far. We evolved from early small mammals which are thought to have been able to survive with less oxygen in burrows.

This world is FILLED with misunderstandings and partial information being paraded around as the WHOLE STORY.

I claim no particular authority, other than having paid attention to pretty much everything I can.

Anyway:
The guy who pointed out we and modern apes apparently have one ancestor in common. We are not descended from apes, they are not descended from humans. We are BOTH descended from the SOMETHING.

The account that tried to explain why we might have lost our tails was frivolous. There is no archeological evidence YET FOUND indicating that HUMANS as a group ever had tails. Yes, there are occasional birth defects that resemble tails, but there are also birth defects that resemble space alien fantasies. Not evidence of anything.

The description of evolution which attempts to explain the imaginary "lost" tails is a misrepresentation of evolutionary theory. It's a common one, but has NOTHING to do with actual science, or with Darwin, or with reality. The CORRECT way to describe evolution, is that random DNA 'errors' occur (usually called MUTATIONS); then, if the species is "challenged" by natural disaster, or plague, or whatever, and the MUTATED members survive to reproduce while the NON-mutated ones die out, you have evolution.
Now, the way this affects supposed "lost" features, is NOT that "un-utilized features are discontinued." That only works in factory manufactured societies, of which none are yet known to exist on Earth. If a feature goes away, it is because those who had it, died before reproducing. They may have died because of it or not, it doesn't matter. What DOES matter, is that those who DO survive and reproduce, DON'T have the feature. The feature may or may not be a nice thing to have, THAT doesn't matter either.

So, NO we as a species never had tails to lose. Somewhere in the distant past, one of our many NON-HUMAN ancestors was born with a mutation that did not include a tail, and for some reason, that ancestor survived and had WILD ANIMAL SEX with another of it's kind. Their children survived the next great Comet strike or whatever, and their tailed comrades all died.

Well this is true. If we are to accept evolution (which I do accept) then ultimately are the descendants of rodents and even lesser animals before them.

So our most distant parents were rats.

In fact, this drives home a quite interesting point. We are always worried about preserving 'humanity', but all live on Earth is equal. There is nothing special about humanity. Humanity doesn't truly even exist as some sort of 'individual thing'. We're just one form of many. We are the survivors of the 'rat race'.

We are what rats have become.

Many people would aruge that 'rats' are a different line and still exist today, but that kind of thinking is a fallacy because it's the very notion of 'lines' that is the fallacy in the first place.

Everything is related equally in the deepest sense. The only thing that we are doing is using genetics as a way to 'measure' the closeness of relationships. But that's truly a superficial ruler.

It might change something if what you had said was true. No, we are a closer match to chimps then pigs.

Humans share some of the same proteins as pigs and pigs can be used as organ donors and in skin transplantation, but genetically speaking we have more genes in common with chimps.

All human embryos have large tails. At a point during our embryonic development our tail is reabsorbed. Sometimes it is not entirely absorbed and a small true tail exists at birth. There are no bones, cartilage, or notochord; but there is muscles and nervous tissue. We have something just as good as a tail (IMO better). We have butts. :). Other primates do not. Here is a link to an interesting article on the subject.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r291/
missladydoyle/tail0zy.jpg&imgrefurl=http://shkrobius.
blogspot.com/2007/10/why-don-we-have-tails.html&usg=__YisJA_U9jxlQ3shtJCkC9ugYKL8=&h=427
&w=600&sz=30&hl=en&start=6&itbs=1&tbnid=9CQgwT7U458IrM:
&tbnh=96&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhuman%2Bembryo%2Btail
%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

Anyway... Yes we used to have tails. Were we still classifiable as a human when we did...No

Many of you guys need to learn the basics about evolution because many of you are way off. Natural selection is only one part of evolution. You could completely remove it and animals would still evolve.

Also the theory of evolution does not have anything to do with humans evolving from apes. It only says that allele frequencies in populations change over time.

The apes to humans thing is not even darwin. If you take what we know from evolution and apply it to humans. Then you realize that we and apes share a recent common ancestor.

As for pigs. That is just stupid. A pig is more closely related to a Whale than it is to a human. Here is a link to the genetic tree of life showing the branch for mamalia.

http://tolweb.org/Eutheria/15997

Is it actually important?

Does it matter in the grand scheme of things?

Would lack of or presense of make us any less human?

Oh come on, don't say it like that right after you corrected people saying apes were our brothers.

For us it goes ancestor-rat, rat-monkey?, monkeys, apes, humans- at a layman level. I don't think anyone in here who doesn't already know where to look would appreciate the particular species names and a dozen steps that just give the same general chain.

Now as for why we don't have tails it's important to note that apes fight each other quite a bit more than monkeys. If you look at a gorilla they've got really short legs.

People used to just say "that helps them balance in the trees" almost without thinking but if you look at the primates with the best balance in trees they have very long legs.

So no, the short legs have some other purpose. What male gorillas do is grapple. The best fighter ends up with the biggest harem like this so they want to be excellent fighters. A low center of gravity is important for grappling (you can see that we lower ours in those sorts of sports and you can see dogs bred for fighting have shorter legs as well,) and so now it becomes obvious what's going on.

Back to the tail- aside from it's prehensile function tails are used for balance. As our ancestors steered away from that set of traits they may not have just lost their tail from non-use but because shortening their legs had an impact on tail growth.

And of course if fighters could easily break each other's tails it would be better not to have it at all than to lose a lot of fights because of a cheap shot and then maybe even have it get infected and result in death.

Genetic Drift?

Ya, taking natural selection out is pretty nasty. You'd get the degeneration over time thing creationists are always saying is the only way it could work, at least not without some other selective force.

Yes,

Also Non-random mating, migration, and mutation.

If I had a tail I'd always be wagging and knocking things over.

We have something called a tail bone, men also have something called an adams apple,,we dont always name things according to REALITY but more for familiarity sake. We all know the tail is the end so tail bone seems a likely name. But , no, I dont believe I came from anything or anyone with a tail.