If we are evolved from apes than why aren't we still evolving into something else???? Share your thoughts.

Question

I mean humans have looked the same since God knows when, and I don't see any dogs or cats, alligators or horses etc... that look any different... And why don't the monkeys of today change into people Whatever I guess...

Answer 1

BECAUSE WE ARE NOT APES i sure the hell aint, eveoution is a theroy,it will never be a fact,creation is pretty solid enough for me..

Answer 2

Humans are evolving. It is not as slow as written above. There already are differences in brain size from only 1500 years ago. People now are taller. You can argue that its because we have better nutrition and understanding of health,or whatever... it doesn't matter what the reason may be, the point is that we are changing. Changes happen with every generation, but only few of the traits are dominant. Each generation is different from the previous, and thank God for that. Otherwise we wouldn't be apes, we would be single celled amoebas. And no, we are not slowing evolution by controlling our surroundings, we are merely altering its path. So until next time, adios amoebas.

Answer 3

Boy, this question must have been asked a hundred times this month!

Humans ARE apes. We share common ancestors with other great apes. You could equally well ask why aren't humans evolving into chimps.

Life changes over evolutionary time, ie thousand and millions of years. You can't sit watching life evolve, unless you're dealing with viruses and bacteria, some of which can evolve quickly.

Answer 4

What you must consider is that human history is very brief (only 4000 years old) compared to the age of the earth (4.5 billion years). Therefore, we cannot just SEE evolution happen in front of our eyes. Evolution is an exteremely slow process: even 10,000 years is a really short span of time in terms of evolution.

When you say "Humans have looked the same since God knows when" you actually mean to say that humans have looked the same for the past 4000 years: which, like I have said before, is A SHORT period of time for evolution. That might explain why you don't see drastic day to day changed in human beings.

Why monkeys don't change into people is a very good question: actually there is no scientific evidence that even proves that monkeys did change into people in the first place; which is why it is called the THEORY of evolution, not the LAW of evolution. My guess would be monkeys aren't supposed to be changing into humans in the first place which might explain why they are not changing into human beings today.

One last issue that I would like to point out is how you define evolution. Many people view evolution as some DRASTIC change: something that you would see on X-men; or maybe human beings undergoing dramatic transformations like complete skeletal change. However, I believe that evolution is much more subtle and is controlled by surrounding conditions. For example, the ability to withstand extreme cold that Eskimos possess MIGHT be an example of subtle evolution.

Bascially it is very difficult to "see" evolution happen before your very eyes unless you are watching X-men. People change everyday depending on their surroundings: seasick people can get used to the sea by prolonged exposure. I believe what we refer to as "getting used to" are the only examples of everyday evolution.

Answer 5

While many of answers have pointed to the slow pace of evolution to explain why we haven't seen changes in humans, I believe there is also another factor involved. In the past, species had little control over their environment or their reaction to it. For the first time in history, a species is directly interfering with its own evolution. Every time we cure a disease, eliminate a predator, or modify our environment, we are affecting the very factors that drive evolution. I do believe humans are still evolving, but the pace is even slower than it would be without our own intervention.

Answer 6

Homosapiens are still evolving. Look back to Neanderthal man; his stooped shoulders and rugged features were designed for his lifestyle, just as our features fit us for today's environments. In the future, human beings will evolve into more robot-like creatures (remember the song, "In the Year 2525"?).

Scientists find new species every day that didn't exist hundreds of years ago, at least no in the same form as they do today. We all evolve - however gradually - over eons of time. It's part of the evolutionary process (or Nature, or God's creation, or intelligent design). -RKO-

Answer 7

In order for a species to evolve, (in the most simplest explanation) the weak must die in order for the strong's genes to be passed down. This is how we grow, we adapt. But look at your hospitals. Your public service programs. Your homeless shelters. The weak are not dying, they are reproducing and keeping their genes in the gene pool. We are in fact preventing the evolution of our species.

Another viewpoint which I think is equally as valid is that of Daniel Quinn, author of "Ishmael". He says that humans stopped evolving once we became agriculturists. Once we stopped living subject to the law of the land and started subjecting the land to the wrath of humans, we took control of our fate. We were no longer victims of the unknown. We had control of our food supply and that's what stopped us from evolving.

Of course evolution happens on a longer time-scale than what's observable, but these are just my opinions. Also, in terms of the other animals, we just haven't been observing long enough to notice anything.

Answer 8

We are not evolved from apes, Humans and Apes evolved from a common ancestor.
If life in earth was a 24 hour day, your life would not take up 0.00000000000000001 seconds of that day that is why you don't see anything happening.

Answer 9

Evolution is a phenomenon of changing the gene pool of a species over time. The two biggest factors that define evolution are a)death, especially death before reproduction, and B) reproduction. So look around you and see what genes are a)surviving better and b) reproducing better. This is a difficult question to assess in the modern world, since survival to reproduction is almost a given, nowadays. So reproduction itself takes on a greater role in current human evolution. So who is reproducing the most? I will leave that to you to answer.

Answer 10

Evolution is a VERY slow process, and is driven primarily by natural selection. So it takes thousands of years for things to start to change. We have only been recording things for 2 thousand years or so. We don't look any different, cause we have intervined in natural selection with medical science and the gun. Since we are not being hunted (or really having to hunt much) and we keep people alive with medicine, we have kind of slowed evolution down.

Answer 11

We are still evolving. Evolution occurs over many, many generations. Humans have seen evolution occur in short-lived species which go through generations quickly. Come back to Earth in a million years and see where we're at then!

JM