decended from apes?

Question

If humans decended from apes,how is there still apes?

Answer 1

good question, but evolution is just theory and the bible and religion are just myth. nobody knows how we really got here.

Answer 2

Humans *are* apes. The most recent common ancestor of both humans and chimpanzees was approximately 6 million years ago.

The way to understand this is to remember that living organisms are in a state of constant change - It's not that evolution *can* occur, but that it *must* occur, simply because there is no mechanism in living organisms to ensure perfect, flawless reproduction for ever.

Suppose you could study a population of chimpanzees in the jungle, on a timescale of millions of years. Clearly, each individual only lives a few decades, so the population is constantly being succeeded by individuals which are different from their parents - and remember, this is *inevitable*. It can't *not* happen. All the time this population is inter-breeding, the genes are getting mixed together, and only genes which work well with all other chimpanzee genes will tend to get passed down to successive generations (because individuals with genes that don't work well together will tend not to reproduce).

However, suppose that circumstances arise which cause a group to become genetically isolated from other chimpanzees. This could be as a result of an accident of geography (e.g. an impassable river) or breeding preference or simply great distance. There will develop two distinct groups of chimpanzees which can never again exchange genes, because they have become different enough that mating will not produce viable offspring. This is what biologists define as speciation - i.e. the population has forever split into two distinct groups. Biologists have observed many instances of speciation, so there is no doubt that it occurs.

Assuming that both groups continue to survive, it is again *inevitable* that they will diverge genetically - There is no possible way that both groups, isolated and independent from each other, can change in exactly the same ways, and the longer they continue to breed, the more different they will become. Over millions of years, given that the rate of genetic change via mutation tends to remain fairly constant, the two groups will become as distinct as today's chimpanzees and humans are from each other, and from their most recent common ancestor.

All this is based on what we *know* is true - it's not supposition or guesswork, and remember it's not just possible, it absolutely *has* to happen, because there is no mechanism in biology to make reproduction a 100% perfect, flawless process.

Hope this is a useful explanation.

Answer 3

Evolution would posit that humans and apes had a common ancestor from which all the modern species diverged from. However, if that is so, why is there virtually no difference in DNA between chimps, gorillas and orangutans, yet human have 2 fewer chromosomes and at least one unique chromosome.

Evolution cannot explain that without just a little bit of whimsy.

BTW: to address the argument of similar genes, proteins and enzymes found throughout the animal kingdom, the answer is quite simple.....similar problems yielded similar solutions...and this holds true whether one holds by creationism, intelligent design or evolution.

Answer 4

Evolution doesn't say that every singe ape became a human. Questions like this should understand that the theory of evolution doesn't say that an ape one day gave birth to a human. This process happened over MILLIONS of years, and happened over several of different species of apes - eventually created the human mind and the human evolved species. So this question is saying the same thing as, shouldn't there be only one type of ape? Which there isn't, that's the rule of evolution - different species created out of the will to survive and prosper.

Answer 5

This is exactly we think when we kill them - why are they still around - to us a bad reputation on evolutionary records? :)

A good question however! The answer that I have come up with is that we are genetically close but characteristically different. The genetically divergent species emerge when the members of the same species mutates to assume different characteristics - like for example hammerhead sharks.

My personal view if that although we may have descended from primitive marsupials this was on a physical level alone. Whereas development of human consciousness, and ability for reflective thought is not that of the bestial origin - and this is the future. Now, even with this theory the question remains - why only humans are capable of being self conscious among all other animals. And this throws our faith in evolutionary theory in doubt.

Answer 6

I guess some apes are more intelligent than other apes. Apparently, the smart ones decided that living lives of bitter oppression and constant struggle just couldn't outweigh a life of trees and bananas.

Besides, we're apes too. Just a different kind of ape, that has decided that it simply can't live without a cell phone.

Answer 7

Because humans and apes descended from a common ancestor.
We didn't descend from apes as they are today as both humans and apes evolved in different directions from that common ancestor.

Answer 8

Its not that simple, apes and other animals split and decent in different ways.
Several human species disappeared again, only a few evolved.

Answer 9

Supposedly the Giants from the bible killed off all the "missing link" apes, and went on to become a football team.

Answer 10

We are not descended from apes we share a common ancestor. That's the theory anyway.

Answer 11

Some apes can spell descended correctly, thus proving that they should still exist.