2006-09-21 14:28:05 · 17 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
Humans *are* apes, descended from earlier apes. Our closest relatives are chimpanzees, and the most recent common ancestor of both humans and chimpanzees was approximately 6 million years ago.
The way to understand our origins 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, because reproduction is imperfect - 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 survive and 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.
NB: The reason we're classed as apes is that there is no valid way to group all the other apes together that doesn't also apply to humans. In other words, whatever criteria you use to define what is an ape, in order to include chimpanzees, gorillas, orangs and gibbons, humans will also fit those criteria. Indeed, chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than to gorillas, and gorillas are more closely related to humans and chimpanzees than they are to orangs, so any classification that separated humans out from those other apes would not make any sense.
2006-09-22 22:31:05 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 6⤊ 2⤋
This Site Might Help You.
RE:
Did humans come from apes?
2015-08-18 16:31:35 · answer #2 · answered by Solange 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Did People Come From Monkeys
2016-11-14 12:44:57 · answer #3 · answered by weatherby 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
When you say apes, it is a bit misleading because an ape is a modern classification of the current primate family which humans belong to. People often, mistakenly, believe that humans evolved from chimps but that is not the case. Long long ago, chimps and humans (and the other apes), evolved from one common ancestor.
Eg: To give you an idea, it's like you and your sibling came from your parent, but you didn't evolve from your sibling.
2006-09-21 14:52:00 · answer #4 · answered by ? 2 · 3⤊ 4⤋
It is of course more satisfiying for men to say we didn't, but now a days, once you study a bit about the subject, it becomes a theory with a lot of truth in it.....if you read a bit about evolution and how it works, it would be able to explain to you the reason why we still have apes roaming around the earth..... in the mean time i think you should just amuse yourself with this article that came out in the ny times....... pretty crazy stuff....... http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/21/science/21child.html?ex=1158984000&en=10349a4f809965e0&ei=5087%0A
2006-09-21 16:49:27 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 3⤋
No , humans did not come from apes. Humans and Apes, have a different DNA. Scientists like to think that, but it is not true.
2006-09-24 09:01:09 · answer #6 · answered by Norskeyenta 6 · 9⤊ 6⤋
Sure did. We're descended from an isolated population of apes. The main population became the ancestor of modern chimps.
2006-09-21 14:32:25 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 5⤋
Ask the apes.
2006-09-21 14:35:36 · answer #8 · answered by * Deep Thought * 4 · 4⤊ 2⤋
They came from a branch that also spawned the apes and monkeys.
So they and us have similar (simian ;-) ) ancestors.
2006-09-21 14:30:26 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 11⤊ 3⤋
nope...scientistist believe dat we evoloved from homologus structures
2006-09-21 18:18:41 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋