Will monkeys evolve into humans?

Answer 1

No. The reason is that the "design space" of all living forms is so vast that it is ridiculously improbable that two different animals (our ancestor apes and today's apes) can ever evolve into the same animal (homo sapiens). Evolution always works in differentiation, never in convergence.

The concept of design space is a mathematical way to visualize the relative position of a species within all the other species. Imagine to list all parameters that serve for constructing our body (these parameters are embedded in our DNA). This list would contain billions of elements. Each parameter counts for a coordinate of the design space, so we have a multi-dimensional space with a huge number of dimensions. A species is a point (or better, a small region) inside this space. Note that most of the space is empty because only a few parameter combinations lead to life form, others are nonsense.
Through Darwinian evolution, a starting point (species) moves slowly and randomly in the space until it reaches another point (a new species).
In this framework, your question is formulated as: is it possible that two different points A and B can move, along random trajectories, into the same point C? You can figure out that, since the space is vast (and I mean, vast beyond any imagination), although the mere possibility exists, its probability is in fact negligible for any practical purpose.

Answer 2

The theory of evolution does not predict that monkeys will evolve into humans. Indeed, the idea the humans evolved from monkeys is a common misconception about the theory of evolution. Rather evolution suggests that monkeys and humans share a common ancestor. Put simply, monkeys and humans are on the same rung of the evolutionary ladder. Furthermore, since the evolutionary path of humans and monkeys as already diverged, that these paths will re-converge seems unlikely, just like you probably won't see salmon evolving into tuna.

Answer 3

In response to Coleil:

I love when religious people say things like "there couldn't have been such and such because it's just too complex" or similar things. Where is your basis for any such argument? Just because something "seems" complex doesn't mean it didn't or won't happen. -we can't travel to the moon, we don't even have wings!!-

Despite the numerous (factual) findings supporting evolution, there are still doubters who insist that only God could create something "so complex" despite numerous falacies in the bible. Where is the mention in the bible of the other species of humans that existed?
And what about the (factual mind you) evidence that the earth was created 4.55 billion years ago (+ or - 1% difference) compared to the bible's story of it being only 6,000 years old, And I'm assuming by your mention of "God" you are refering to the christian god, which means that you are probably also close minded enough to disregard all other religions that may or may not have been founded well before yours and that your religion was stemmed from. Believe what you want, just don't act so cynical about it.

monkeys evolved. will they do it again? probably not. It just so happened that it was the right time and place for them. evolution takes thousands of years, and by that time the earth will probably have been destroyed anyway.

Answer 4

No because evolution is just a myth that even Darwin himself was unsure about. Just like the big bang theory. There is so much intelligent design in the universe, it couldn't have just come from nowhere, so the only big bang there could have been is, there might have been a big bang when God spoke the world into existence but other than that, I don't buy evolution.

Answer 5

thats why i dont believe in the story of evolution, if it was so then many monkeys would have evolved

Answer 6

Monkeys will continue to be monkeys as they evolve, just as you continue to be you as you grow.

Answer 7

That would be extremely unlikely. If the right characteristics were selected for however you could probably do it in about 5 million years.

Answer 8

i think we have enough people that look like monkeys

Answer 9

Maybe... 50 million years from now? haha

Answer 10

they have already evolved. isn't that enough?
they're not going to do it again :)