Dark Legacy MUD Forum

in a better world, i would be an advocate for evolution and creationism being taught in the schools impartially, and allowing people to draw whatever truths they could from both.

neither should be discounted, and (IMO) neither should be followed blindly... it's how we get into trouble

Please do. I'd like to see the common ancestor for modern primates followed by skeletal/complimentary evidence of divergent evolution at work.

Here is the first problem. Evolution is the science of how life changes over time, NOT an exaplantion of how the universe started. Therefore, it is not even competing with evolution. I know many very religious people who accept evolution. Evolution is a topic for a biology class because it is a biological mechanism. God creating the universe, is not. I'm not saying that it isn't true. What I am saying is that it isn't science, and it especially isn't biology. If you want it to be taught in schools, fine, but it certainly doesn't belong in a science class, let alone a biology class. [/quote]



I can't give you a perfect evolutionary model for any species, let alone humans. It is hard work to extract all that information and continiously add to the fossil record. We are getting better at it all the time, however.

But honestly, even debating this is stupid as hell. You want to see divergent evolution at work? Grow a garden. Breed dogs. Introduce poison steadily into an insects environment, and watch what happens to the insects, then compare what you have to what exists elsewhere. Evolution is a very very slow, steady process, and there is nothing mystical about the mechanisms.

It's simple, really. There is a pool of traits that a lifeform is capable of having. The traits describe everything about this lifeform, but for now lets keep it very simple, with things like size. Let us say that you breed dogs, and you want them to be as small as possible. Which ones would you continiously breed? The large ones, or the small ones? The small ones, obviously. Why do you think you have a lot of the same traits as your parnets? You get half of your genes from each one. So the lifeforms that die do not pass on their genes. Do you see where I am going with this?

Thats half of it, anyway. The other half is mutations. We know mutations happen because we have observed them. A random copying error can produce a slight variance in a species. This can be good or bad. If it is bad, the species probably won't get a chance to reproduce, and therefore the trait will not get passed on. If the trait is good, it increases the likelyhood of the creature breeding, and therefore passes the mutation on.

Now, take those two processes which aren't really denyable, and then spread them out over BILLIONS of years, and you get a lot of change.

So basically what you're saying is "I know evolution occurs, but I can't prove that people came from a common ancestor that also developed the other higher primates."

So in other words you're saying that things evolve (duh), but you can't provide any proof for the evolutionism vs. creationism debate as in how humans were created whether it be from a great primordial stew were we evolved from the muck or whether a greater power created us.

Thanks. I was confused why you were acting like a know-it-all with you "limitless proof" when in fact you present no proof to the matter at hand.

There is limitless proof. Everything I listed occurs.

Yes, I am saying that things evolve. Perhaps you are suggesting that evolution DOESN'T occur, but instead there is a mysterious force that changes lifeforms in an identical fashion to evolution, with identical results.

I never once stated that evolution explains the origin of the universe, and I am pretty sure that I pointed that out in numerous different posts on numerous occaisions, specifically stating that evolution doesn't even try to explain that.

What you are talking about is a big bang debate versus creationism, or perhaps some sort of origins of life theory war, which has nothing to do with the topic at hand, which is me trying to explain to Snowflayke that evolution does indeed happen.

To Snowflayke,


now that we have seen it. Perhaps it is your turn to read the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin..what will it hurt?


Do you know what a fact is?


which book are you refering to? be specific. There are million of books out there validating evolution.


Highschool texts are wrong all over the place. Not just evolution, but in many other subjects as well. Let's not forget that those books are written either by a single individual or a small group of people. It is the board of education in that district who recommends that book to their students. you can not say that a fish is not a fish because a few scales are missing on its body.



I dont even know what you are talking about so i dont know how to respond.


The point of having a debate is so that you can make claims and rebuttal using evidence that you have gathered from your research. It is pointless to tell the person who you are debating to go read something else. Are we debating with you or are we debating with Kenneth R. Miller?


The case that you provided suggests that carbon dating is not 100% reliable. If you know anything about carbon dating and how it works you would have realize this already. Carbon dating is simply measuring how much carbon has decayed. Since we know the exact rate of carbon isotope, we can estimate the approximate time. Despite all of this, there is are statistical measures to reinforce the degree of confidence in all findings. Denying the relative effectiveness and the accuracy of carbon dating is statically flaw.


i believe the word is biology.
anyway, the whole foundation of biology rests on evolution. Evolution is the pinacle of biology. We would not be able to understand HIV and treat it so successfully if we didnt understand evolution. The whole branche of human anatomy and human physiology would be nothing more than medival witchdotors without evolution. Ecologists would not understand half of what they understand without evolution.


I can think of a few holy books that was proven wrong a long long long time ago and yet they still make copies of them and is still themost sold book. Religion is about control; science on the other hand seeks the truth, whatever that truth may be. If science supports God with overwhelping evidence then scientists would not hesitate to accept his supposed doctrines. Up till, this isnt the case :p

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to thremp,


I'll look more into primates and see what kind of findings we have out there. As for evidence of evolution that we witness, feel, tested, combated against, engineered drugs against, made mathematical models of... is HIV. Believe it or not, but HIV evolves. I can go on and on about HIV but HIV is a prime example of evolution in progress. You may ask why HIV and not primates. Well, if you understand evolution you wouldnt be asking me that question

bad analogy. You seem to produce alot of claims and sarcasm but absolutely no evidence and not even funny.
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To Weems,

[code] I told you, if you want examples, I will start listing limitless ones.[code]
Science is all about experiments. If you can not demonstrate it through experiments it is not science. I'm not kidding, this is the golden rule. I'm sure you already know this. In light of this, I like you to provide me a single experiement where one spiecies has successfully evolved into another. When you provide your experiement, keep in the mind the definition of "spiecies."
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to isabelle,
no, give me the season and episode number and i'll tell you, i have all the episodes but havent seen most of them.

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I just want to point out that evolution is not about apes turning into humans. Evolution is a bigger picture. Evolution is about adaptation that results in changes based on natural selection. It is about herediatary and different fitness between organisms. It is about surval of the fittess. Evolution is about how the living world changes through time. Based on what i've said, and what evidence we have found it is suggested that humans arise from apes. What is interesting is that the people who did the findings and the people who have the most authority on the subject agrees that this is PROBABLY true. On the other hand, many people who dont know squat, uneducated, close minded[not refering to anyone here] are so ready to fight this theory with everything they got. In the end, they can only provide untangible opinions and their own philosophy.

ok here's how evolution 101 for those that dont know. If you think you truely know how evolution works then you can just ignore this post.

lets imagine a population of roaches. These roaches craw all over Tarsonis Square. These roaches are made up of all colors and sizes. There are red ones, white ones black ones. They come in small size, medium size and large size. Before humans settle in Tarsonis there was only celeborn flying up in the air dancing with Zenpin. Once in awhile, celeborn or zenpin would fly down to the ground and eat a roach just because they feel like it. This doesnt reallly effect the roach population much so the roach population continues to populate and of course they mutate (a biological thing) and produce new colors. One day Lingolas moves into Tarsonis and decided to make Tarsonis Square his primary hangout spot. Everytime when Lingolas the giant troll walks around Tarsonis Square he steps on the roaches because he has very large feet. The slow roaches that didnt get out of the way in time got stepped on and died. Also the big ones that couldnt fit between the cracks also died. After a few hundrew years, only the small roaches were left. Since the big ones that carry the genes to grow big are dead before they can pass on their genes they become extinct, on the other hand, the small roaches that were able to escape death able to pass on their genes. After a long long time, most of the population is made up of small roaches. There are still some medium size roaches around but not much, but virtually all the large ones went extinct. You see how large/medium/small roaches became only small and medium roaches? If you fast forward a few million years under the same condition, the medium roaches will eventually become extinct as well because they keep on getting stepped on more often than the small roaches.
Now imagine that before lingolas moved in, Celeborn flew down to the ground and collected a bunch of roaches and brought back to his house in the enchanted forest and kept them as pet. The roaches at Celeborn's house would be so much different when compared to the roaches at Tarsonis Square a few million years later. The roaches at celeborn's house would be in all sizes while the roaches at tarsonis squares are tiny.

Of course i used size as an example of how one thing can change into something else. In the real world, it is alot more complex giving a wide variety pressure.

What happens if celeborn likes to eat only white roaches? those white roaches are gonna go extinct really fast. What if the gene that code the color white sits next to the gene that code for wings? You would start to notice that if you erradicate white roaches, you also erradicate wings. Next thing you know, there are only brown, read, black roaches left that are wingless.

In my example:
* Lingolas' feet is natural selection
* small roaches are fitter than large roaches
* the fittest survives (small survives)
* Natural selection exerted a pressure against large sizes


What happen if natural selection select reproductive organs instead of overall sizes? If sexual organs cant fit during copulation then you can reproduce at all. If you cant reproduce you cant create offsprings. If you cant create offsprings you can not pass on your genes. If you can not pass on your genes then you are eliminted from the gene pool.


I dont know if anyone were able to follow my ridiculous examples. Of course this is over simplified, i left out alot of other stuff dealing with genetic, statistics and chemistry.

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a great way to understand evolution is to understand genetic and mutation. Once you understand how information is transfered and altered, you will realize how easy it is for one organism to evolve.

Like i said i am not a "debater" in this , Was just shareing what i know and my Exp on this .

Lingolas , First off I know how corbon argon dateing works
Its the study of the decaying atoms in the object , Half-lifes are What it is basicly .. If i remember right now (Long time ago) They count the halflifes and "Estimate" the Life of the object , But if there are counting the half-lifes, They reach a point where they cant go any further ..This is where they Guess the rest of the way...

You can Get a rock dated if you like, Go to some island and pick up a fresh lava rock and get it dated its been proven wrong when used on objects under a 1000000 years or something like that, Sounds kinda fishy there..Thats not fact its estimation


I would like to here evidence of evolution. As ken says " There is and has been no evidience that a dog can or will ever produse a NON dog"
Which is the whole theory of evolution

well yes.. anything a dog evolved into would still belong in the dog family ? i believe?

From ligolas post
Code:
believe what he says where he says Evolution should not be taught in schools only because it has nothing really to do with learning the human body in biololdy

i believe the word is biology.
anyway, the whole foundation of biology rests on evolution. Evolution is the pinacle of biology. We would not be able to understand HIV and treat it so successfully if we didnt understand evolution. The whole branche of human anatomy and human physiology would be nothing more than medival witchdotors without evolution. Ecologists would not understand half of what they understand without evolution.


That is the most ignorate thing i have ever herad you say man , Evolution has nothing to do with the STUDY of biology..
The study of biology is the study of the human body ,its organs and mustles ,bones and so on.. You Can learn all about the human body and still not need evolution. Show me a surgen or a docter that saved someones life because he knows we came from mud, We cant repoduse evolution or anything like it so how would this study help him??.

BTW when something like HIV, germs or bugs grow resistant to something thats not evolution.. Read a book man pesticides and drugs target the dna or cell structures of the "enemy" If the bug or germ mutated it might become resistant because the target cell of the pesticides will change or be removed which will make it survive and be there to spread that resistant defective geans around.. Mutations are a LOSS of infomation from the cell or Dna, It has never been witnessd that a mutation would ever GAIN infomation out of no where, another agument that evoution is iffy at best


Well as you can tell i am sleepy as hell >.<

Dogs are Always going to be dogs , it has been that way for all knowen history, Evolution is not "breeding" You can change the way a dog looks but its still a dog no matter what you do with it ..Species are not "races"

definition of evolution:

1.) A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form.

2.)
a) The process of developing.
b) Gradual development.

3.)
a) Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species.

b)The historical development of a related group of organisms; phylogeny.

response to thremp,


Just plain wrong. I major in Biology buddy. Biology is my main study. I've been studying it for 5 years now. The first class that they make you take in biology is evolution. The 2nd class you take is evolution and the third class is genetic. From there on all other classes that you take tied directly to evolution. I have taken these courses:
PATTERN DIV/ECO/EVO
PROCESSES ECOL/EVOL
HUMAN REPROD & DEV
GENETICS
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY CHEM
ORG CHEM LAB
INTRO TO PSYCHOLOGY
BIOCHEMISTRY
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY BIO SCI
EXPER BIO LAB
CELL BIOLOGY BIO SCI
HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY
DEVELOPMNTL BIOLOGY
PHYSIOLOGY LAB BIO SCI
HUMAN ANATOMY
INFECTIOUS DISEASE BIO SCI
MEDITRRANEAN ECOSYS

believe me when i say that these are tied to evolution. I know this for a fact because i have studied them myself not because i read it on some unreliable website off of google. If you want, i can go into more details and explain how these subjects are related to evolution.


dead wrong
Biology is the study of life!!!
Anatomy is the study of body structures. Bones, blood, organs and how anatomical structures function. This does not have to be about humans. Now, human anatomy on the other hand is specifically about human structures.
Doctors dont know **** about biology compared to biologists. Doctors only know what was required for them to get into medical shools. Sure they know alot about the human body but that is only a small portion of biology. Even biggest findings and breakthrough dont come from doctors. they come from biologists. Doctor are then taught by biologists.


Of course you can, but you will have alot of trouble treating retroviruses. Again we do have doctors that treat people without any clue about biology...we call them witchdoctors and they lived in the dark ages.


No one ever said we came from muds. I think only people dont know what they are talking about would make that kind of claim. Mud is abiotic. it is not living. If you are not living you are not subject to evolution. even if you are living and cant reproduce, you are not subject to evolution. If you are living and can reproduce but in the absense of selective pressure you are not subject to evolution. If you are all of the above with selective pressure but have equal fitness then you still are not subject to evolution. Go read a book and come back with a more intelligent rebuttal.


here is the most famous study that may help you answer your question. find the evolution of Guppies experiment. I think you can find a similar study on PBS Nova.


you seem to know more about HIV, germs and resistant. I challenge this claim and dare me to provide evidence that suggests that HIV does not evolve. I will show you mine in another post.



I know, for example reverse transcriptase inhibitor inhibits revertranscriptase, an HIV enzyme that allows to retrovirus to turn from a single strand RNA into a double strand DNA by using the host replicative machinery. I hope you know that this does not prove your point. I will point out the error in your argument in a bit.

[codeIf the bug or germ mutated it might become resistant because the target cell of the pesticides will change or be removed which will make it survive and be there to spread that resistant defective geans around..[/code]
Not this simply buddy, but for the sake of the argument lets assume so.

[codeMutations are a LOSS of infomation from the cell or Dna[/code]
WRONG! you seriously need to figure out what is a mutation, its cause and effect. How is mutation related to the genotype and the phenotype. Again, please do your hw carefully before you make wild claims that are outright wrong. Mutation CAN GAIN function. Mutation simply means changes in the genome. That's it!!! this may result in the loss of function if that sequence is transcripe into a non working protein strand. It can GAIN a function if the changes happen to code for a sequence that create working proteins. Mutation happens all the time! most of them are loss of function hence we are fine because it doesnt do anything. Gain of function is more lethal. We call them CANCER. Cancers are mutation that has gained functions.



read what i said above.
Also, i study papilloma viruses for a living. Believe me when i say viral evolution exists.

response to Isabelle:



Sorry Isabelle, this is a myth. Evolution does not push organisms into higher form or into a more complex form. RELATIVE fitness yes.



Yes, transitional fossil records are abundant to support this. I dont know why creationists always like to claim that there are no transitional fossil records.





Yes, but not necessary. Small populations have greater chances of having a genetic drift leading to evolution.




yes countless evidence of this. This is where antomy comes in.

response to voska in post #2 of this thread.

Voska wrote: 2. i dont think things magically derive from someplace out of no where

Your belief is probably right but have you ever heard of antimater? A very intesting topic. Alot of people got excited over this when it was first discovered.

yeah, better is an improper word to use.

like, if we evolved into smarter humans, with less strength, it's not really better, since we are weaker.

I wonder, what if you used a different word rather than evolve, or evolution.... what if we used the word adapt, or adaptation, is adaptation the process of evolving?

Insects adapt.. mosquitos adapt.. which is why our use of pesticides and insect repellent is always being changed, because the damn things keep adapting.

Or can you not use the word evolution with adaptation?

[/code]

Well, the definition Isabelle posted is technically correct, it is just not the scientific definition. It is the dictionary definition, that is to say that it's what the word means in common usage.

I know what isabelle meant, it's just that there was a question on the final and most students get it wrong. Most people believe that evolution (not adaptation) results in a more complex organism. This is not necessarily true at all. I can provide an example:

worms that live inside your guts (hopefully you dont have any, common in 3rd world countries) have something called eyespots rather than eyes. Having true eyes would be more complex but not more fit. There is absolutely no need to have eyes because there are no light inside someone elses gut. Having eyes is actually less advantages because they would have to spend extra bodily resources to upkeep those eyes that contribute absolutely nothing to its survival.

another example: marine animals have a reduced sexual organs. This is because they live in a liquid medium. A male organism can simply release sperm in the open ocean and wait for the female to come by and scoop it up at another time. Land animals can't do this because the sperms would dry out, therefore the animals have develope complex structures.

The most successful organisms in this world are actually viruses (assuming that they are alive). Viruses are the simplest thing you can think of but yet the hardest to eradicate.
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my question is, when some organism adapts to something, is that evolution?

so when you take the Avian Bird Flu, and it changes itself to jump from cat to human, and then changes itself to become a highly virulent flu strain, and jumps from human to human, maybe becoming airborn..

has it evolved, or has it simply adapted to it's surroundings, what is the proper term to use for that? Are either terms correct or incorrect?

No.
Adaptation and evolution are related but not the same thing. Adaptation is a trait. evolution is stransformation from one speicie to another. You and I can adapt to many things but that does not mean that we have evolved. It is through evolution that we maintain a viable adaptation.
for example: a diverse group of birds live peacefully in a forest. One day, there is this huge snow storm that covers most of the forest. Most birds that can not tolerate the cold go extinct. Those with extra fur that are able to tolerate the cold are better adapted to the new environment so they live. After many generations the population will look very much different from before. Almost all the birds are full of thick feathers. If different conditions keep on changing the birds from one form to another making them so different to a point where these birds can no longer reproduce with the old orginal birds (the ones before the snow storm came in) they are said to have evolved. Notice that individual birds can not evolve. Population evolves not individuals. These newly EVOLED birds are perfectly ADAPTED for their environment. Their ADAPTATION is the ability to grow thick fur that protects them from the cold.



about the avian flu. I know nothing about it so I really cant comment on it. anyone knows?

btw, i got a picture on my computer that i like to post but i dont know how. [/img]

Evolution is genetic changes.

BTW Lingolas all those ridiculous statements were Zidane's and not mine.


I think you're bringing in "evolution" and not the "theory of evolution" (the direct competion to the creation theory). If you can't argue them seperately then there is no debate to have. The first isn't debatable at all. It is complete fact. You are mixing arguments and not adressing the original issue.

Tell me how people evolve from ooze. Not that evolution actually occurs.

don't involve me on your notes thremp.

Tell us how this so called "ooze" is a biotic lifeform to begin with, and we may be able to help you.

That is always a good Argument against evolution , The question is how did it all start ..

IT is said that we started from ooze, then water creatures ...But this is my question if the creature evolved and walked out from the water what did it breed with, unless by chance a huge number of the same race did so at the same time?.

If we all came from the same thing.. Animals, plants and so on why is it a lion cant breed with a deer, or a bear with a panther ..Isent this against the evolutuion theory that creatures from the same origin cant breed?

It dont seem logical that evolution would breed out this many races of animals but limit there breeding like that

You are speaking of abiogenisis. Abiogenisis is not the samething as evolution and evolution can not explain abiogenisis alone. In fact, it is abiogensis that helps explain evolution.

My memory of abiogenisis is a bit sketchy so i will be very general how something like a rock can become someone like Thremp (not that there is any difference j/k). I don't remember all the details of what i'd learn. afterall, it has been like 5 years now. If you KNOW there is any mistake please point them out.

To understand this you must be able to figure out the composition of the earth 4.3 billion years go. Excuse me if the years are off. The earth did not have oxygen or else everything would have been oxidized and life would not have been able to start. The earth also did not have the same atmosphere as it is today. Atmospher composition was very different. Most of the compounds were poisonous. I dont remember the exact composition and their percentage. The earth also had little protection against UV rays. This UV ray is actually important for life to begin with. if you take all the compounds existed during this time and hit it with UV rays you begin to form all 20 amino acids. For those that you dont know, amino acids are the building block of life. In otherwords, you abiotic compounds begin to form amino acids that are essential to life. What i have said up to this point is not a theory. It has been experiemented on smaller scales and have been confirmed. next thing you need to understand is how lipids are form. Lipids have the ability to seperate internal environment from external environment. This means that they have control of their own composition. At this point, these lipids called protobionts are not yet living, but they possess living characteristic and that is the ability to regulate. These protobionts are specially interesting is because once they reach a certain size they simply break into 2 parts. You can experiment this at home by taking a drop of oil and drop it in a tank of water. Keep on adding oil to that same drop on the water and eventually you will see that it begins to divide into two smaller parts. This is similiar to how cell divides. Up to this point, we know that protobionts are able to regulate and divide. When they divide, the two smaller parts carry the same information as the older bigger part. This is a characteristic of hereditary. Now, back to the amino acids that i was talking about earlier. Chemists have noted that amino acids tend to form RNA in the presence of zinc. We have enough knowledge to believe that this primordial soup was exposed to zinc in the earth surface giving rise to RNA. It is logical to see that these protobionts could have picked up the RNA and started to divide. Up to this point, protobionts have RNA within them, they can divide and regulate their own internal plasm. I dont remember rest.

If you think about it carefully you start to see the little pieces. We dont have the puzzle completed. Several pieces from this puzzle are missing and is under much investigation; however, we can see the big picture without having every piece of the puzzle. This is why some scientists believe that life could have started froma abiotic substances.

Now lets ASSUME that life can start from abiotic substances. It doesnt take too much brain to figure out that there will be diversity. As long as enzymes keep on making mistakesputting nucleotides together and as long as UV keeps on pounding on DNA/RNA there will be mistakes. I dont want to go on and explain the chemistry of how this can happen, just take my word for it.

Up to this point you have life and diversity, we are missing snowflaykes fish, Thremp's apes and eventually Thremp himself.

As the earth cooled down the atmospheric composition begin to change. I dont know what changed and to what degree. This area is a bit gray to me. All i know is that things changed and water begin to appear. At this point, those protobionts are now living organisms living in the sea floor. We know that living marine creatures come first because of fossil record evidence and recently genetic evidence. Also not too long ago we have found a prehistoric fish that was thought to have extinct still alive in the southeast pacific. Genetic testing on the fish have also supported this. anyway, marine animals living underwater would have to fight compete for food and space. As the earth begin to dry up it develops more land/swamps... Undersea vegetation begin to invade land little by little and eventually land was filled with many trees. Next, the fish that was able to tolerate dry air just a bit was able to venture on land, usually around the costs or the swamps. These guys are of course more fit because they have access to a whole new paradise. because selective pressure select those that can exploit new resources on land, these adapted species are better off. Next thing you know, we have animals on land.

Up to this point we have moved from water to land. Fosil records greatly support this because we can see transition from gill/fins to leg like structures and eventually legs. this did not happen in one day, it took million of years for such transformation to take place as it should.

Lets fast forward until these land animals have evolved enough to become apes. Honestly i dont know how apes evolved to become modern day humans but i suspect that it is through the process of speciations. Basically two groups of apes that are seperated long enough so that the two groups starte to evolve into two different direction. One of the two groups evolved into humans. I believe that PBS Nova also have a great episode on this. I highly recommend everyone to watch it. You can download PBS Nova torrents very easily. Anyway, two of the biggest transformation was 1.) the thumb, and 2.) the brain. The two combine allows us to create tools and ultilize it efficiently.

notice that i left out the neanthertals because that area is a bit gray. People are still debating back and forth. Some anthropologists believe that the neanthertal cross bread with humans to produce modern humans, but other disagree because they were two seperate species therefore genetically and physically they could not have created any offsprings. What we know with confidence is that we erradiated the neanthertal and brought them to extinction.

anyay, by this time those apes should have evolved into Thremp.