If man evolved from primates, why hasn't man evolved into somthing else?

Answer 1

We are evolving everyday. But the process is very slow that it's impossible to tell from day to day.

Answer 2

Man (H. sapiens) is classified as a primate. We are (still) primates that have evolved from ancestral primates. All primates have shared ancestry within the last 50 million years. Our closest living relative within primates is the Chimpanzee. We share 98.77% of genome sequences with the Chimpanzee, and last had a common ancestor almost 5 million years ago.

Will H. sapiens evolve into something else? Given sufficient time all species become extinct. Some leave descendant species some don't. Will H. sapiens leave a descendant species? Now there's an interesting question.

Answer 3

Since modern man emerged there is no doubt at all that he has. The fossil record over the past 250,000 or so years shows it very clearly indeed.

Of course, over the space of a few recorded historical generations suich changes are much harder to see. But go on a 300 year old sailing ship and - as you bang your head - you will see that we have sure got taller in even a very short time.

Whether evolution has stopped for modern man is a moot point. The problem is that evolution requires a chance of death before reproduction, so that a genetic change can decrease that chance and lead to better reproductive success. We are now very good at ensuring the chance of death before reproduction is low.

What is certain is that evolution is an excellent description of how we arose on earth, can be observed even today at the mucroscopic level and is certainly far more convincing that religious garbage.

Answer 4

The process of physical evolution has now been stunted in man because of all of the things we have done to effect the world around us to make things more "convenient".
Though it can be said that we are in fact evolving in knowledge as for the physical evolution of man we no longer need as much of it as other things we have done have compensated for physical shortcomings. If you don't think man has evolved, think of this.
50 years ago there was no way that man could have communicated to someone on the other side of the world in less than half a day. Right as I press the enter button on this "man made" machine in front of me, hundreds of thousands to millions of people will in seconds be able to see in whatever language they understand what I have to say. Some of them on the other side of the world.

Answer 5

good questoin the thing is the dna keeps evolving but doctors are calling those deformities, like the 18 fingered boy& all that. know that evolution is not radical its slow, like right now every individual is participating in our sizing up to be as big as dinosaurs were coz some have big heads , some big feet, the whites are pioneering it on the growth of the nose (confirm?), some of the blacks (penuses (co#k) are sizing it up. Now when mating comes in all these 'big' features are going to come together , or unless if the Iraninan president calls the whole thing quits and leads us into extinction with 'his nukes'. hop-e you feel me. My assumption is we branched of a long time ago and when we were homo sapiens the wiered ones were killed so keeping it as the way we are like the 12 fingered, three eyed, all to do with natural selection and the will of the apes.....on and on and on...

Answer 6

I hate to waste an answer just to bag on someone else's answer, but the answer before mine on this topic is actually quite a bit off-base, which is surprising, considering a clear knowledge of the subject and a high percentage of best answers even after answering over 200 questions.

Evolution does not require natural selection as defined by that person. There does not need to be either a disadvantage nor an advantage for evolution to at the very least be directed and aided. Sometimes it's as simple as population dynamics. Our characteristics are clearly changing over time, and our reproductive fitness may not be influenced by outside factors, but rather by cultural institutions. Either way, subsets of our population are reproducing at a much higher rate than others, and there is a clear genetic shift going on which ultimately can, and probably will lead to the overall evolution of our species.

There are numerous examples of evolutionary changes that do not appear to be the result of external forces, or "natural selection" in the sense espoused by floundering penguins.

Answer 7

Look, I appreciate everyone that wants to support the theory of evolution. You really are doing a service for science. But you need to understand the theory to support it correctly.

Here we go with the correct but still unpopular answer.

In order for evolution to proceed you need genetic variation that is acted upon by natural selection. Natural selection dictates that less fit individuals will reproduce less (or not at all) than more fit individuals. Without natural selection THERE IS NO EVOLUTION.

So, if you look at human beings, we've had the technology for centuries to assure that all humans (or at least a random sampling) reach adult reproductive age, regardless of fitness (those 6 billion people out there must be proof of that). Hence there is no natural selection in human populations, hence there is no evolution in human populations.

Human technologies may evolve, but humans as a species have stopped undergoing biological evolution long ago. And no, it's not going on at a slow rate, and no, evolution does not happen continuously.

Unless something drastic happens you are already looking at the end product of human evolution.

I was pleased to see some posters got this right in this thread. Thumbs up for you.

Answer 8

Back a long time ago, there was a split, an offshoot if you will. One generation evolved, while others stayed on the same course. In Tibet, the people who live there have evolved and have a higher lung capacity because they live in such high altitude.

Answer 9

Either because man is too busy trying to turn himself into a god and conqueror over all his domain, so he doesn't evolve anymore... or it takes a few million years to evolve, no notable changes can be observed, within ones lifetime...

Answer 10

two aspects:

1) time scale. the evolutionary time scale for a long-generation organism such as humans is not something any person can observe. even the entirety of recorded human history (5-10,000 years?) is not long enough to really observe speciation of humans.

2) selective pressure. humans are able to change their environments, this relieves a significant portion of the selective pressure that helps drive evolution.

Answer 11

first off, evolution takes a VERY long time. second, i'm not sure that it's really necessary for man to evolve now, because usually when a creature evolves, it is to adapt to it's surroundings. but with modern technology, it's not necessary for our bodies to adapt when we are living in controlled shelters and do not have to hunt for food.