If we "evolved" from monkeys..where did the monkeys come from?

Question

Some people say there isn't a God, we simply evolved from primates since we have similar DNA or something like that? But..if we did..then why are there still monkeys and where did the monkeys come from?

Answer 1

I'm with Bettie Rage on this one: crack open a book.

Isolated populations of a species usually form new species. This doesn't mean that an entire species evolves, only a segment of the population evolves. The remainder of the original species survives because their habitat remains virtually unchanged. You'd have to eradicate the entire original habitat to cause the extinction of the original species.

As for where do monkeys come from, they came from a group called "pro-simians" like tarsiers and bush-babies.

Go back far enough and you have mammal-like reptiles (now extinct). Further back: turtle-like reptiles. Further back: amphibians. Further back: crossopterygian fish (like the coelacanth). Further back: animals with a backbone...all the way back to single-celled life formed from the water/chemicals/amino acids (brought in by comets), and heat/lightning of the primordial earth.

Answer 2

We didn't evolve from the monkeys you see today. We evolved from something similar. And that evolved from something else. You can sit here and make comments like this and try to convert people to believe a four thousand year old book. Or you can actually take the christian route and try to understand evolution. Go back to school, take some biology courses and learn how the other side views things. Expand your mind, don't give up your faith, just try to understand what others believe. I go to church, but I consider myself an atheist, I just want to understand everything there is in life. You'd be much better off if you took the time to learn about things outside of the bible.

Answer 3

We did not evolve from "monkeys". We and they both evolved from a common ancestor, which is why more than 99% of our DNA is perfectly alike. The monkeys are still here because they evolved to that point, just as we did. The original common ancestor was the evolved version of something much less complex.

Evolution takes simple organisms and makes them more complex. The influenza virus evolves constantly, changing it's DNA through mutation. That is why we must get a new vaccination each year, the virus is not the same, but more complex.

Answer 4

Given Evolution is true (which is debateable):

Monkies still exist since beneficial mutations are rare and thus it's unlikely that every group of monkies everywhere evolved as quickly or as well as the group that became humans. In addition, evolution is usually spurred on by environmental change. If monkeys are doing well where they are, it would take some sort of environmental change to change their breeding chances.

Monkeys came from less evolved creatures and so on back to single cell organisms.

And in answer to someone else's question:
We ARE still evolving. People are different then they were hundreds of years ago. Man, however, evolves more slowly than other creatures because OUR great advantage, the brain, allows us to do what no other creature can, make our environment (the main factor in driving evolution) adapt to US instead of vice-versa.


No one (sensible) denies that evolution (as a process of slow adaptation to different environmental variables over time) happens. In fact, it has been PROVED to happen (in finches, some moths, etc... nothing groundbreaking). However, there IS debate over whether it was a divine being or an extreemely protracted stint of the evolutionary process that created the world as we first started seeing it when history began to be recorded.

Answer 5

We may or may not have evolved from monkeys, I don't know and no one does. I do believe in God and am a Christian but not a traditional one. I believe the Bible is not literal but is written in the language of the times and I think God and Angels may well be people from outer space. We could have been populated here by aliens. They just wrote about it in terms they understood at the time.

Answer 6

For one thing, your "evolved from monkeys" statement is woefully misleading and inaccurate.
Homo Sapien Sapien (modern human) and Chimps evolved from a common ancestor (we only have 1 chromosome separating us from each other!). We didn't come from some monkey, we both came from a "pre-hominid" ancestor.
Where did the pre-hominid come from? Previous iterations of that specific genetic lineage and so on... That is the point of Evolution, we started from something more primitive, and advance toward something more complex.
Why are there still monkeys? Because as stated above, we DID NOT EVOLVE FROM THEM, we both evolved separately along different paths. If we DID evolve directly from them, it wouldn't matter anyhow, because their are so many different threads of the Hominin genome, if we evolved from 1, there are still several dozen other species which branched from their first common ancestor the same way that Cro-Magnon and modern Humans are slight variations of the same Homo Sapien lineage that separated because of the necessities of harder living conditions in norther climates during the declining ice age.

Do your research from secular scientific sources before trying to use misleading language to skew a question in favor of your misinformed position.

Answer 7

The thought is that both monkeys and humans evolved from a similar line. Humans did not evolve from monkeys directly.

Answer 8

Well it looks like the moron fairie has left you a double helping this morning huh?
Look sparky, humans and all other primates (that is what we are after all) like monkeys, chimpanzees and apes share a common ancestor. It is that ancestor that does not exist anymore.
Do you understand that or should I dumb it down more for you?
Actually forget that, I doubt I can concievably dumb it down to the point where you can understand.
I've left a link for you to read. Hopefully you'll have the intellectual courage to actually read it and not just skim over it and then dismiss it out of hand.
But I doubt it.

Answer 9

talkorigins.org

They will answer all your questions if you actually want to learn something.

But if you just want a quick answer;

Monkeys evolved from a ground dwelling species very simiar to a lemur, which itself evolved from a species very similar to a cat.

Not all apes evolved into humans, because ape physiology is still successful in their environment. Only a small group of apes evolved in that direction, the rest evolved into the ape species we are familiar with today.

Answer 10

in response to the ignorant nincompoop above me about cracking a book other than the bible, I would suggest they read it. Also, we do evolve every day...so in a sense, there is a thing as evolution. You don't look the same as you did as a fetus/infant/child/etc.. That's evolution. The evolution about us coming from Apes is rediculous. We can have things in common without being "related". I think is more of a personal belief question than anything really.