What's with the monkey thing 1?

Question

What is it with the monkey thing?

Every time anyone mentions the theory that humans evolved from monkeys loads of people reply "no humans didn't, humans and monkeys share a common ancestor".

Ok, last I looked their was no taxionomic classification "common anscestor". For our "common ancestor" to be it had to be something - but what?

"It was a primate" people are told. Eh? Primates are the group of:

- apes
- monkeys
- lemurs

to be "a primate" you have to be either an ape, monkey or lemur. So fine, it was a primate: which one?

It seems a perfectly reasonable (but by no means established) hypothesis that apes split from monkeys and humans diverged from apes. We have a lot of ancestors - its a very reasonable thing to suppose that one of them swang from the branches and had a bannana fixation.

Ook

Answer 1

When people ask, "If we evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?", that is the response you get.

The sane people who understand the fact that evolution is, do not have a problem being related to monkeys, and in fact often joke that we are only talking monkeys.

Answer 2

CURRENT primates are apes, monkeys, lemurs, humans. I'd imagine there was a creature with primate characteristics that didn't classify as a true primate from which later primates were spawned, including humans and apes. But, yeah, we could have come from a monkey or a very monkey like creature. We also all came from amoeba, which is not a primate, so your argument is a bit flawed as you are not looking at what came before the creatures we call primates. I think that is the point people try to make, but it is irrelevant.

Answer 3

particular, yet they're long ineffective with the help of now. additionally, no longer each little thing that dies leaves preserved keeps to be (in certainty, fossilisation is an somewhat uncommon incidence); and the place a sparkling characteristic confers an exceedingly severe survival benefit, it has a tendency to take over interior of just some generations (see CDK007 blind watchmaker video on YouTube). Plus, of direction, the in-between stages *do no longer* unavoidably look the way somebody used to image morphing could naïvely anticipate. Human chromosome #2 is frighteningly such as what you will get in case you fused chimpanzee chromosomes #2 and #3; and there are corresponding retroviral signatures later interior the DNA series, exhibiting that people and chimpanzees are descended from a elementary ancestor.

Answer 4

Right, our ancestors were apes, but they didn't belong to the species of apes that live today. We share a common ancestor with chimps, and this ancestor was an ape and was probably quite similar to a chimp.
I don't have any problem with this. I don't know why people start to shout no when someone says we evolved from monkeys. It looks that many people don't feel comfortable with this, but I don't see the problem.

Answer 5

A primate (L. prima, first) is any member of the biological order Primates, the group that contains all the species commonly related to the lemurs, monkeys, and apes, with the latter category including humans. The English singular primate is a back-formation from the Latin name Primates, which itself was the plural of the Latin primas ("one of the first, excellent, noble"). Primates are found all over the world. Non-human primates occur mostly in Central and South America, Africa, and southern Asia. A few species exist as far north in the Americas as southern Mexico, and as far north in Asia as northern Japan.

The Primates order is divided informally into three main groupings: prosimians, monkeys of the New World and monkeys and apes of the Old World. The prosimians are species whose bodies most closely resemble that of the early proto-primates. The most well known of the prosimians, the lemurs, are located on the island of Madagascar and to a lesser extent on the Comoros Islands, isolated from the rest of the world. The New World monkeys include the familiar capuchin, howler, and squirrel monkeys. They live exclusively in the Americas. Discounting humans, the rest of the simians, the Old World monkeys and the apes, inhabit Africa and southern and central Asia, although fossil evidence shows many species existed in Europe as well.

All primates have five fingers (pentadactyly), a generalized dental pattern, and a primitive (unspecialized) body plan. Another distinguishing feature of primates is fingernails. Opposing thumbs are also a characteristic primate feature, but are not limited to this order; opossums, for example, also have opposing thumbs. In primates, the combination of opposing thumbs, short fingernails (rather than claws) and long, inward-closing fingers is a relic of the ancestral practice of gripping branches, and has, in part, allowed some species to develop brachiation as a significant means of transportation. Forward-facing color binocular vision was also useful for the brachiating ancestors of humans, particularly for finding and collecting food, although recent studies suggest it was more useful in courtship. All primates, even those that lack the features typical of other primates (like lorises), share eye orbit characteristics, such as a postorbital bar, that distinguish them from other taxonomic orders.[citation needed]Old World species (apes and some monkeys) tend to have significant sexual dimorphism. This is characterized most in size difference, with males being up to a bit more than twice as heavy as females. This dimorphism is a result of a polygynous mating system where there is significant pressure to attract and defend multiple mates. New World species form pair bonds, and so these species (including tamarins and marmosets) generally do not show a significant size difference between the sexes

knowledge is power

Answer 6

I'm not sure what the point is exactly. You beleive we become from primates, some people beleive we come from fish, some people beleive we were created in an instant by God, some people beleive we were planted here by aliens from another planet. For the sake of Christians, though, I will address this.

Although the Bible claims that God created the heavens and the earth in 7 days, the Bible also says that to God, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. If you understood literature, you would understand that what they are saying is that to God time isn't important. God might have created man out of the dirt by taking thousands of years to grow microscopic organisms and evolving them through different stages, for instance. It doesn't say HOW God created man. Truly, it doesn't matter HOW God created us, but how we will return to Him. Christ's followers thought that He was going to set up an earthly kingdom when he arrived, but clearly, the kingdom He was setting up was a spiritual kingdom that lives on in our hearts. We are electro-chemical in nature and I would imagine that our spirits are more like electricity than anything else. The physical body will perish, but the energy moves on. This is only disputed by those who are still looking for a physical kingdom. Christ spoke in parables to "confound the wise" and even His apostles were confused, which is why He spent time explaining the parables to them. If you take everything as literal, you are not considering the literary rules. If I say, "Heaven is like a ray of light," I'm not saying that heaven IS a ray of light. There are other important parts of literature that you need to understand also, but I'm not going into that. If you couldn't afford an education, go to a library and educate yourself, or these days, go to some web pages that teach grammar, parts and types of speech, ect. Try the link I'll post in the source area.

Love, Hope, Peace, & Christ Be With You,

Cal-el & Swissy

Answer 7

HUMAN ORIGINS

The fossil evidence for immediate ancestors of modern humans is divided into the genera Australopithecus and Homo, and begins about 5 million years ago. The nature of the hominine evolutionary tree before that is uncertain.

Between 7 and 20 million years ago, primitive apelike animals were widely distributed on the African and, later, on the Eurasian continents. Although many fossil bones and teeth have been found, the way of life of these creatures, and their evolutionary relationships to the living apes and humans, remain matters of active debate among scientists. One of these fossil apes, known as Sivapithecus, appears to share many distinguishing features with the living Asian great ape, the orangutan, whose direct ancestor it may well be. None of these fossils, however, offers convincing evidence of being on the evolutionary line leading to the hominid family generally or to the human subfamily in particular.

Comparisons of blood proteins and the DNA of the African great apes with that of humans indicates that the line leading to modern people did not split off from that of chimpanzees and gorillas until comparatively late in evolution. Based on these comparisons, many scientists believe a reasonable time for this evolutionary split is 6 to 8 million years ago. It is, therefore, quite possible that the known hominine fossil record, which begins about 5 million years ago, extends back virtually to the beginnings of the human line. Future fossil discoveries may permit a more precise placement of the time when the direct ancestors of the modern African ape split off from those leading to modern people and human evolution can be said to begin.

Answer 8

I dont even believe in evolution, and even I know the theory is there was a common ancestor between us and the apes. You need to read up on the theory.

Answer 9

The common ancestor is now extinct, that is why it cannot be found under modern taxonomical classifications...

Answer 10

Where are you getting you information? People are primates as well.