Human beings are not advanced Animals The right observation will reveal that we are not animals. Animals are a level of life below us, as plants are a level below animals; minerals are a level lower still. Animals can reveal aspects of the human being, but humans are superior to animals. Some plants, such as carnivorous plants, can reveal aspects of animals and some minerals, such as crystals, reveal plant-like qualities. However, each belongs to its own class.
Through our own observation of the world we can see these classes differ from each other. As children, when we played, “I spy with my little eye”, we asked for a clue by saying: “Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?” Really we should add another class, human and say, “Is it human, animal, vegetable or mineral?” Although young children may seem to be like animals in terms of basic needs and training, they do, however, contain a potential that does not exist for an animal. Higher animals, while they resemble human beings in some ways, remain animals.
The esoteric explanation for the similarity between humans and higher primates is that we were on the same level at one stage. At this time we were spiritual beings without a physical body as we know it today. As matter grew denser we began to develop ways to ‘clothe’ our being with physical matter. Half human, half animal forms like the mermaids remind us of this time. The higher primates are those who were in such a hurry to assume a physical body they got trapped halfway between human beings and animals.
At a later stage the sexes separated and the following article refers to this when it says, “The youngest chromosome of all in the human genome is the X, which helps determine gender. The scientists have found that on average, X is around 1.2 million years more recent than the 22 non-sex chromosomes. ” This is scientific evidence for the separation of the sexes.
The article, while reaching some outrageous conclusions, actually points to esoteric truth. It is interesting how science can be so unscientific and not look to people like Rudolf Steiner for a more plausible explanation and inter-species sex!
Did early humans go ape for chimps? Humans’ ancestors interbred with chimpanzees after the two species drew apart millions of years ago, a paper suggests.
The provocative idea is sketched by US genome experts, who have discovered that hominids and chimps diverged far more recently – and over a much longer time scale – than anyone had thought.
During this time, the authors theorise, the two primates were rather more than kissing cousins: they had sex, swapping genes before making a final separation.
“The … analysis revealed big surprises, with major implications for human evolution,” co-author Professor Eric Lander, the director of the Broad Institute of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said.
Until now, the belief was that humans and chimpanzees shared a common ancestor but went their separate ways around 6.5 – 7.4 million years ago.
The basis for this is a carbon-dated fossil called Toumai, whose supporters say is the oldest known human.
Its critics, though, dismiss Toumai as an ape.
Molecular clock The estimate is also backed by the molecular clock, a method of calculating evolution on the basis of the speed at which genes mutate.
Previous molecular clock studies have focussed on the average genetic difference between human and chimp.
But the new paper, which is published online by the British journal Nature, takes a different approach.
Exploiting the mountain of data that has come from the human and chimpanzee genome projects, the researchers compare the genetic codes of the two species as they are today, and estimated the various age of key sequences, rather than the overall average.
They believe that the two species made their split no later than 6.3 million years ago and probably less than 5.4 million years ago.
In other words, around 1 million to 2 million years earlier than the Toumai estimate.
Moreover, “speciation” of chimp and hominid, the process by which they emerged as separate species, took an extraordinary long time – around 4 million years in all.
The youngest chromosome of all in the human genome is the X, which helps determine gender.
The scientists have found that on average, X is around 1.2 million years more recent than the 22 non-sex chromosomes.
‘Smoking gun’ Professor Lander describes X’s tender age as “an evolutionary ‘smoking gun’.”
Previous studies suggest that sex chromosomes are among the most vulnerable of chromosomes when it comes to interbreeding – co-mingling places its genes under swift selective pressure.
Thus something unusual must have happened on the way to speciation – an initial split between human and chimp, followed by interbreeding, whose results show up in progressive younger genes, and then a final separation.
Lead author Nick Patterson, also at the Broad Institute, says that Toumai’s claimed status as
Man’s ancestor has been somewhat clouded.
“It is possible that the Toumai fossil is more recent than previously thought. But if the dating is correct, (it) would precede the human-chimp split,” he said.
“The fact that it has human-like features suggest that human-chimp speciation may have occurred over a long period with episodes of hybridisation (inter-breeding) between the emerging species.”
A gradual divergence of species through hybridisation, rather than a quick break, may be far more common than we suspect.
“That such evolutionary events have not been seen more often in animal species may simply be due to the fact that we have not been looking for them,” the team’s senior author, David Reich, said.
– AFP 18 May 2006