Whats with evolution?

Question

If we evolved from apes (which I'm not denying BTW) why have they stopped evolving?? Why hasn't one started talking or wearing clothes (other than circus type stuff). It just seems odd!!!

yeah I know it takes a while but still...nowt else has happened

again NOT denying evolution

Answer 1

We didn't just evolve from apes - we are apes - just adapted different from our cousins. Chimpanzees being the closest - in fact chimpanzee DNA is closer to Human that it is to Gorilla. Some scientists even want to classify chimpanzees in the genus Homo instead of Pan.

Now why the other apes didn't evolve along the same lines - they didn't need to. If an organism fits it's environment you will see little change. When what became humans started moving on to plains from the jungle they had to adapt - life is a lot different without the protection of the trees. The lesser adapted ones died and didn't leave offspring. The ones that stayed behind - hey life is good - why change.

Answer 2

What makes you think they have stopped evolving? There is still a lot we don't know about ape societies, there have been and are some extraordinary apes, look at the famous Chimpanzee Oliver for example. He walked upright, could follow orders to perform tasks like fetch a wheelbarrow, he preferred the company of humans - infact his fellow chimps shunned him - he looked 'different' too, although DNA tests showed him to be like all other chimps. Evolution is a process and only time will tell if any apes will evolve further. Perhaps the competition with homo sapiens will simply drive them all into extinction, that seems to be the best bet right now.

Answer 3

We just share a common ancestor with apes actually. I think that they are also evolving like we are today. Except that now, instead of evolving physically, we evolved socially.

Since none has learned to speak with the apes in their natural language, we can't totally deduce that they are not evolving. We just can't see them.

If by evolution you mean, why didn't they change into something else, like turn into humans maybe? Well, as I said, we didn't come from them. We just share a common ancestor.

And don't evolution come about when there is a sudden possibly fatal change in our environment?

For example, we can't live above ground anymore. And we will be forced to live underground. If we stay there for more a thousand years, maybe even 5000 years, we would surely evolve. We just won't notice the change until we are suddenly confronted with an image of how our ancestors looked like.

Answer 4

We didn't evolve from apes. You are thinking about evolution as a ladder of progression, which it isn't. Multi-celled organisms are no "better" than Prokaryotes -- they're just more complex.

Not to mention that is has taken us 5 million years to change from the common ancestor that we shared with apes. In those same five million years, apes have also changed. The changes in their physical and social characteristics have not been as drastic as those of the Hominid Family because Pongids and Hylobatids have, for the most part, stayed in a similar environment since that time.

Besides which, the great apes and the lesser apes live in the tropics. They already have a great deal of body hair. Would you wear a coat in Borneo, Sumatra, and Southeast Asia?

Answer 5

Even 160 or so years after Darwin proposed this theory, the most up-to-date modern science has still been able to prove nothing that can take it beyond the label of "theory."

Scientists have been working with great amounts of funding and support for decades, and all they've been able to prove for certain are the reasons why it ISN'T possible. They keep trying, and keep failing. So, if this is something you'd like to believe in, have faith - they're continuing to work on it.

The point you bring up is only one small aspect of the discussions, and those die-hard fans that refuse to refer to it as a theory anymore (and these are NOT scientists) will try to say that apes and mankind split off of an original gene pool - thus explaining why today there are both versions of the same "animal."

I believe that IF anything is ever accomplished that changes Evolution from a theory to a known fact, it will probably not happen sooner than my great grandchildren's time here on Earth. And I don't even have grandchildren.

Answer 6

Evolution is about survival. The process is very real; as animals adapt to their surroundings or die. This change or adaptation may or may not be the process which produced humans, but apes have what they need to survive and very little physical or mental motivation to evolve any further. Training is not the same as evolution and should not be confused with the process. Training an animal is done for many reasons; of which survival is hardly one. Seals don't have to know how to play the trumpet to survive, but they do rely on the the flipper like extremities that carry them through the water. "The day we stop debating anything is the day we accept ignorance and embrace its dark oblivion."ME...feel free to use that quote..lol.

Answer 7

The evolution never didnt just stop, there were other "creatures that evolved, but do to competitive disadvantages, they either dies out or were absorbed by human ancestors.

look up the history of Neanderthal man - this is an example of another branch that evolved and later disapeared.

The evolution never stopped, just the less successful species have disappeared.

Answer 8

We didn't evolve from apes. Humans and apes both evolved from a common ancestor. Apes are another branch of the tree. And who says apes have stopped evolving?

Answer 9

Why do you say they've stopped evolving? Evolution is the result of global environment changes. Animals adapt, and our ancestors' led to bigger brains. In another ice age, it's possible that through natural selection apes would be affected in a way that could contribute to their cognitive developement.

For instance, one theory is that early humans evolved an upright posture or gait so less of their body would exposed to sunlight, hence allowing the scavanger species to gather more food. Climatic changes trnasformed their natural arboreal or jungle environments to flatland savannas. With less shade, to survive they, instead of lounging under the shade with the lions, they adapted to travel great distances for food and water, perhaps following migrating herds -- much of a migratory populations dead being from natural causes, elliminating the species need for hunting. From there it could be said that early humans evolved greater access to hands for tool building and carrying offspring across the hostile flatlands. Add to that a brain increasing in size, thus requiring more ingenuitive methods for acquiring a food source sufficient for fueling such a demanding organ, coupled with other environmental changes such as the ice ages, imposing the necesity for even more intelligent creatures to compete in an environment of fierce preditors and the like, and you in a nutshell arrive at homo sapiens.

In the event of an ice age, humans have the intelligence to overcome it without evolving, and apes haven't evolved to such a point that would allow them to compete. However, they could themselves migrate to warmer locations, such as flatlans without trees, hence eventually, providing humans didn't interfere, evolving an upright gait or undergoing whatever other millions of possibilities that would lead to intelligence..

But it takes time and luck...

Answer 10

Humans are still evolving, and if time and distance keeps people apart they will evolve into more sub-species .IE:- Eskimos, short stocky and round headed to retain warmth. Masai:- tall, thin, black skin, thin faced to deal with the heat of their environment. Two sets of humans at the extreme perhaps but having evolved to adapt.
It's happening under our noses to us let alone the other primates.