The Role of Gene Mutation in Human Evolution

Throughout the term, reading the book, “Through a Window” by Jane Goodall has been quite intriguing for me, in that it has inspired me with new ideas and perceptions about how our own species has evolved over time. I have really enjoyed seeing the many similarities that hominids share with other primate species, especially chimpanzees. Goodall’s research only further proves that we are not only extremely biologically similar to chimpanzees in our DNA, but have many behavioral similarities as well. The film, “Monkey in the Mirror” also shows support for our likeness in intellectuality. These documented findings on chimpanzee and human resemblances provides the strong evidence needed to conclude the fact that humans do indeed share a common ancestor with great apes.

However, not all experts agree on the evolution of humans. Ben Mauk author of the article Why Haven't All Primates Evolved into Humans? feels just the opposite. He states that humans did not evolve from apes, gorillas or

Darwin once hypothesized that humans evolved from an ape like ancestor and that those ancestors most likely originated in Africa since the majority of the great apes lived there. Unfortunately, Darwin’s hypothesis was ignored for reasons such as people (e.g. Europeans) not liking of having African ancestors—not to mention the lack of evidence did not help in supporting such hypothesis. Thus, finding the missing link between apes and humans was of great important—it still is. Thankfully, through extensive research many scientists have been able to determine a clade called Hominin [7]. This clade contains humans as well as their most closely related relatives.

However,some scientists argue that not all human beings evolved which is why there is existence of the apes species. It can therefore be concluded that human beings are a modern and advanced version of primates. This conclusion can be supported by the fact that primates can suffer

According to the report of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Institute of Health presented in 2005, chimpanzees share 96% of the human gene sequence. It allows to draw a conclusion that humans and chimpanzees are very closely related to each other, and this relation is great than between humans and other species, such as gorillas or orangutans. Regarding evolution of humans, it is also interesting to note that according to taxonomists originally both humans and apes belonged to the same superfamily of primates, but later they were separated into families: humans - to Hominidae, and apes – to Pongidae. (Steffof,

Chapter 10 of Disease and Human Evolution discusses leprosy. What initially stood out to me is that leprosy isn’t actually the official name of the disease. It was renamed Hansen’s Disease after Dr. Hansen, who discovered the real cause of leprosy. This is where I saw the first evolutionary mechanism. The mycobacterium that causes leprosy, Mycobacterium leprae, can shed its cell wall. This allows it to adapt to a variety of environments, including our body, allowing it to infect as many individuals as possible. I think this is a great example of part of the evolutionary synthesis, that heritable variation will be systematically biased. This says that variation will be biased towards adaptive and well-integrated variants. This mycobacterium certainly did that in evolving the mechanism to shed its cell wall so it can integrate into any organism’s system. I also found it incredibly interesting that this bacteria can also infect armadillos of all animals. While Barnes also discussed that chimpanzees and monkeys can be infected, it stood out to me that armadillos specifically can be infected, as we typically just learn about livestock and non-human primates can be infected with the disease.

Trying to get an insight into their environment, food, and social structure. Although there is no direct evidence to prove that we as human beings have descended from any modern-type monkey or ape, our genealogy does indicate that we have gone through stages, in which we possibly evolved from a relatively medium-sized creature with good binocular vision, hands with good dexterity the ability to climb trees. An evolutionary trend seen in primates involves the development of offspring both before and after birth and their assimilation into

Ernest Van den Haag strongly contends the need for capital punishment in our society in his article. Van den Haag provides a substantial amount of convincing facts and information to support “The Ultimate Punishment”. Van den Haag discusses such topics as maldistribution, deterrence to society, miscarriages of the penalty, and incidental and political issues (cost, relative suffering, and brutalization). The death penalty is indeed the harshest/ultimate punishment a convicted criminal can receive in our society. I agree with Van den Haag’s article. I am in favor of the death penalty system in the United States. Through capital punishment’s determent process, I feel it is a

According to my observation, even though Chimpanzee, and Gorilla are similar, they differ in many other ways when we go deeper in physical, and behavioral traits. However, both species also share the majority part of their DNA with Humans. Based on some reliable researches, some scientists realized that humans did not come from apes but instead shared common ancestors. As a matter of fact, humans and Primates are different, but share most of their genome, explaining why we found some similar patterns of behavior among humans, and

The goal of econometrics is to aid decision making in a business setting. By analyzing seemingly unrelated sets of information, economists hope to see correlations that may help make informed choices. (Ouliaris, 2012) Econometrics has its limitations-if data is incomplete or if the sampling period is insufficiently short the resulting information may not give the full picture as intended by the economists. (Ramcharan, 2012)

Applying for medicine is well known for being one of the most competitive degrees to embark upon.

Two points made about human evolution are that as the ice sheet retreated, Europe was the first repopulated by prehistoric humans from southwest Europe and in a second event about 14,000 years ago, populations from the southeast spread into Europe, displacing the first group of humans.

Human evolution is the gradual process in which people, or Homo sapiens, originated from apelike ancestors. Scientific evidence, particularly in the form of fossils and secondary remains, show that the physical and behavioral traits shared by all people evolved over a period of approximately six million years. Humans are primates. Both genetic and physical similarities show that humans and the great apes (large apes) of Africa, chimpanzees (including bonobos, or so-called “pygmy chimpanzees”) and gorillas share a common ancestor that lived between 8 and 6 million years ago. The volume of fossils found in Africa suggests that most evolution occurred there and is likely the place of origin for early humans. This brings to fruition the “out of Africa” theory, also called the “single-origin hypothesis.”

Human evolution according to research started over 6 million years ago. The outcome of the evolution process is the current human beings. Scientific studies have revealed over the years a remarkable affinity between the chimpanzees/Apes and human beings. Even though this reality is not a definitive prove that human beings evolved from apes, it does show that the human beings are in one way or another related to other primates. Scientists suppose that the humans and the primates shared a common ancestor. The subject of what makes humans what they are and their origin has been the exclusive purpose leading to many scientific studies globally (Coolidge & Wynn, 2011). Studies believe that Africa was the origin of evolution millions of years ago. Fossil remains have been discovered in different parts of Africa as well as other regions of the world. Different hominins have been discovered around the world in the last 1 million years. Thus, the different discoveries have led to comparisons between the various species of hominins to clarify on their similarities as well as differences. This essay seeks to explain whether they were distinctively different species or regional versions of the same species.

The two gorillas living side by side in Africa will have DNA that is much different from each other than two humans living halfway across the world from each other. The reason for this is due to the fact that Gorillas have many different variations in their species. Humans on the other hand are not so different from each other meaning that there won’t be many genetic variations among humans. Therefore, humans will have a lot of similarities amongst each other. Through studying the ape’s mitochondrial DNA it is proven they have more genetic diversity than humans. Despite the fact humans are lot more divided geographically, living all over the world in many different cultures. The genetics of the human race is still very similar which shows an astounding difference between the evolution of Homo sapiens and Apes(Gorillas and Orangutan).