If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?

Answer 1

This is a very good question, Crystal! If you carefully read Darwin's book, The Origin of Species, you will see that he indicates that the speices from which another comes, cannot exist at the same time as the one that comes from it. So, those who hold to the "man from ape" theory and call themselves "Darwininists" are not truely what they say; they have modified Darwin's theory. This, in itself, is not bad. As theories are examined, and hypotheses are tested, theories should change to reflect the new data.

However, ultimately, any theory is/should be derived from observation. The problem, here, is that the interpretation of the observed facts is subjective. One person can interpret the facts one way and another person a completely different way.

I will suggest to you that the theory of evolution is incorrect; not that evolutionists are stupid, ignorant, or whatever other descriptive word some might have for them. They are simply incorrectly interpreting the data. This will occur whenever God is removed from the picture.

The theory of creation is just as valid if the data is interpreted with God in mind. In fact, I believe it is more valid. The statistical possibility of everything we know coming from nothing without some intelligent intervention is staggering! In fact, the statistical possiblility is 0.00!

Now, science is an "art" based upon imperical (observable and quantified) facts. In science, the phrase, "The numbers don't lie" is always (except in the case of evolution) used as a rule. If the numbers show that something is true, then it is. If the numbers show that something is not true, then it is not true. This leads me to the conclusion that intelligent design (also known as creation) is the only workable theory we have.

Answer 2

Well, at least your terminology is reasonably close to being accurate.

The simplest way to explain it is that currently existing apes are evolutionary cousins. Apes and humans share an evolutionary grandparent (common ancestor/ concestor) as it were, but apes and humans have different evolutionary parents born from that grandparent.

The climate shifts that led to the division between humans and apes didn't happen all across Africa, just in one area, the rift valley. The evolutionary grandparents living inside this area gave rise to early hominids, the grandparents living outside the area gave rise to the early ancestors of modern apes.

Until recently the great forests of Africa were reasonably stable, so the apes haven't been subjected to the kind of ecological pressures that lead to significant shifts in anatomy and or behavior.

Evolution has no built in direction, something that can be explained by pointing out that for roughly the first 5/8ths of the history of life on earth only single celled organisms existed.

Answer 3

Modern Apes are not the ancestors of Man. The story of human evolution tells us that Modern Apes and Man were descendants of an Ape that was a Proto-Ape. This Proto-Ape was a primitive Ape that had just speciated from the mongkey lineage. This Ape has since gone extinct. However, there were populations of The Ape that survived. These populations speciated and diverged into the ancestors of d Modern Apes and Man. Today Apes are Man's closest living relatives.

Answer 4

There are two problems with this question. The first problem misunderstands the evolution of humans. The second problem misunderstands evolution itself.

First, humans did not evolve *from* apes. Humans *are* apes, and evolved from some creature that we would not classify today as an ape ... a creature that *is* now extinct. (And in case you reject the idea that we are apes ... this is jut a categorization ... like saying we are 'primates' or 'mammals' ... or that we are 'animals' and not 'plants'.)

Second, regarding the process of evolution in general ... this is like asking "If early Americans decended from Europeans, why are there still Europeans?"

Think about it. When we say that humans evolved from X, that does not mean that *all* Xs went on to become ancestors of humans. It means that *some* Xs went on to become ancestors of humans. But there would be nothing contradictory about most Xs contintinuiing on quite happily as Xs. In the same way that a few Europeans left Europe to found America, but left Europe quite fully populated ... a few Xs got geographically isolated to become the ancestors of humans, but there were still plenty of Xs left to become the ancestors of the other apes.

Answer 5

I think you are misunderstanding the term apes and misunderstanding evolution.

We are apes. We evolved from an extinct ape, from which chimpanzees and bonobos also evolved separately.

The common ape ancestor of chimps, bonobos and humans evolved from another ape from which gorillas also evolved.

It's like a tree from which branches keep sprouting.

Read this excellent site: http://www.becominghuman.org/

Answer 6

We are apes. All the extant apes (including us) evolved from extinct ape species. It's like saying if budgies evolved from parrots, why are there still parrots.

This is the sort of simplistic question creationists ask. Read science, not creationist stuff, if you want the truth.

Answer 7

People didn't evolve from apes as we know them today. That's a common straw man argument set up by deniers of evolution.

Humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor.

Answer 8

The argument for evolution isn't that we evolved from modern apes. It's that modern apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor. The split would have been waaay back before the time of homo sapien sapien, before neanderthals, even before Australopithecus.

Answer 9

I believe it's because the branch of apes we evolved from were able to stand upright, and this allowed us to move faster on the ground, so we expanded from the trees and mountainous areas to the plains. That allowed us to get larger physically and then we began expanding past water areas, and after all that time of moving around some of us kept traveling and reproducing, spreading the different genetic diversities around so we kind of 'homogenized' our genetic makeup.
A percentage of humanity has webbed feet.

Answer 10

Well, just about everybody have said the correct answers; apes and man has a common ancestor and that evolution of one organism from A to B doesn't preclude that A doen't exist anymore.