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Are All Vertebrates Cousins of One Another?

Posted by JacobDiv • 6/12/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: dna, family, life, vertebrates

All vertebrates have a common ancestor. If you go up the family tree of any vertebrate, including you and me, going up through the parents, their parents, etc. for enough generations, we all trace our lives and bodies to some organism or pair of organisms that reproduced in a direct chain to each of us.

To me, that means all vertebrates are cousins of one another. We all are family.

I think this actually applies to all life, all organisms with DNA. To me, this information completely changes how the world of life seems to me.

User Comments

6/12/08

acousticguitarist

no way, they came from 12 diferent alien species :-)

[reply]
1. 6/12/08
  
  JacobDiv
  
  From what we know, it seems possible that the earliest life, reproducing DNA, could have come from a meteor. We have not traced the start of life to Earthly processes yet. All we have traced is basically back to the slime. The slime could have come from space.
  
  Wherever it came from, it seems obvious that all living things are related. It's a weird thought, but that doesn't make it false.
6/12/08

BennyGreenberg

we're not doing the chicken and the egg thing here - are we?

[reply]
1. 6/12/08
  
  JacobDiv
  
  I don't see how. We all go back to a certain egg. So we are all cousins, branches off that one egg.
6/12/08

RMania

So why don't you invite some giraffes and amoebas to your next family gathering

[reply]
1. 6/12/08
  
  JacobDiv
  
  well, it does affect how I feel about eating
2. 6/12/08
  
  Donlewis
  
  @misterDog
  
  Don't worry about it. A lot of your relatives wouldn't mind chomping on you.
3. 6/12/08
  
  RMania
  
  I see. Well I would not recommend a diet consisting of non-living things. It might make you a little nutrient deficient.
4. 6/12/08
  
  JacobDiv
  
  obviously we have to eat. All living things live on digested family members. Recycling?
6/13/08

JacobDiv

So, do you accept the whole animal kingdom as a single family, all descended in unbroken chains, over millions of generations, from the same set of parents.

Adam and Eve were not human, they were more like chemical compounds than most things we envision when we think of living things.

[reply]