Often when engaging someone like a creationist I try to do a small walkthrough of some of the evidence we have for evolution. I try to use our order and it’s species as a example since it’s more familiar.
It typically goes something like in the genesis Homo we see many species, all extinct except our own, H. sapiens. Though we see some of the long gone species in our own such as the Neanderthal lineage among modern Europeans and Asians.
Then I step back to our tribe, Hominini which includes the genre Homo and Pan. I do a quick rundown on the difference between convergent evolution versus basal traits among a group sharing a more recent common ancestor with those traits. I explain that we can see similar anatomy and physiology between us and Chimps.
I then explain some of the basics of how much in common we have with them genetically.
I then explain how we can also look into the fossil record and see when some of these traits begin. We can see how bipedalism begin to take place. We don’t find humans among the earliest primates. That we can trace these steps of evolution and see man and chimp begin to take place.
While doing this I also bring up dogs often. How we can see some similar traits, but no where near as much, snd we share some ancestry but not as much as with chimps.
I try to use a easy and simply to understand argument to see how we relate to chimps versus a monkey and a dog. That we can typically tell the further away we get physical similarities we also tend to have a larger genetic gap and a older fossil record of our speciation.
I was wondering if anyone knew of any great books, blogs, or podcasts that really dig deeply into what we have in common with chimps and what we don’t have in common wth them and general natural history of the primates.