Originally Posted by: Dr_simonAgain you are correct and the answer is there if you look again the neanderthal argument. The point is that neanderthal may not have been a common ancestor to anything but rather a failure (hence the extinction). The problem is that a variation in genotype is very slight and you may be looking ant the result in the fossil record and not ever realize it !

I see, that's very interesting actually. I was aware of how closely related genetically humans are to primates such as the chimpanzee and orangutan (what is it, like 99.9% identical genes?). I can see how transitional forms could be extreme in some cases if a small part of the genome were altered...but I find a random altering in favor of environmental pressures incredibly unlikely, which is why I believe that evolution (if there is indeed interspecies evolution) may be guided by an outside force. However, that is just a personal belief and I certainly would not want schools to teach it that way, hahaha! I just personally don't see how something as complicated as a cell could have came out of nothing...didn't we already disprove spontaneous generation? I'm no expert though, and I don't claim to be. I'm sure you of all people, Simon, know MUCH more about this than I do! I'm majoring in English, hahaha, all I can do is write about how I don't know anything, haha!