Okay here we go again, and please read the disclaimer.?

Question

DISCLAIMER: Do not answer this question to just get points, I will report you. Do not answer this questions with something to the effect of "read ______ book." If you truley KNOW the answer then answer it, all other answers are not welcome.

Evolution. I know we have all heard this a million times, but I haven't recived a valid answer yet, and quiet frankly if this is such a proven "fact" then it shouldn't be this hard to explain. If we evolved from apes there are a few things I want to know, and yes, one of them is why are there still monkeys.

A) Why are there still monkeys?
B) If humans evolved from monkeys. And humans and monkeys have been born at a constant rate for millions of years. Why are there no creatures in the middle of evoltion? I find it hard to belive that one day overnight a monkey turned into a human. Everyone says if takes a long time to evolve, so why don't we see any creatures in the middle of evolution, and please don't answer with "look in the mirror."

Answer 1

A) a)There are still plenty of animals that have been around for a looooong time. Alligators, horseshoe crabs, turtles etc.. have been around for as many as 400 million years. If a body plan "works", there is little evolutionary pressure on it. Usually speciation seems to work on small isolated groups that can propagate any changes among themselves rapidly.
A) b) Humans and modern monkeys evolved from a common ancestor. That ancestor is not around anymore. Monkeys are NOT our grandfathers, they are our cousins.

B) Again, different species and groups of species will change at different rates. And again, we didn't descend from chimps, chimps and humans had a primate ancestor.
Also humans have been essentially the same for 40,000 YEARS! Our written history of any animals goes back at the most about 5,000 years and is very spotty that far back. Probably 2,000-2,500 years is as far back as we can reliably go. It's simply not enough time to literally see.

That said, please check this out ofr observed speciation:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

Answer 2

Your questions make no sense.

For example: "Why are there no creatures in the middle of evolution?"

That's like asking "why is there no such thing as an 'animal'?".

Every creature is in the middle of evolution. So is every plant. That's why "look in the mirror" is a perfectly good answer.

The "why are there still monkeys?" question also simply reveals that you don't understand evolution at all. Why would you think that evolution would predict that there would be no monkeys? I'm sorry, but that's just a bizarre, incoherent thing to think - it has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution.

Even worse is your "I find it hard to belive that one day overnight a monkey turned into a human". Do you honestly believe that's what evolution says? Surely you must know better than that. I find it impossible to believe that a person living in the western world and trying to participate in a discussion about evolution could honestly believe that evolution says that "one day overnight a monkey turned into a human". That statement has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution, and if you got it from some website or book or classes, you need to recognize that you were deliberately lied to by some filthy propagandist with no morals whatsoever.

Your complaint that you're not getting satisfying answers to your questions fails to recognize the real problem: your questions are wrong. It's as though I asked "Why does the Bible claim that pizza is evil?", and then dismissed Christians who were unable to explain why pizza is evil. The technical term for this is "strawman argument". You might think about looking that up on wikipedia.

Answer 3

First, evolution isn't a "fact", its the model/theory that most accurately reflects the world around us. Hope I don't sound condesending, but by calling it "fact", you are just giving a distraction to the actual topic.

Second, we are not descended from monkeys but a creature resembling the African ape.... (from which monkeys are also descended) that creature no longer exists. Where this misconception of the monkey thing comes from is an English Bishop who tried to discredit darwin by suggesting that darwin was calling his grandfather a monkey. Darwin's brother was at the meeting and retorted that he'd rather be descended from a monkey than a man who tries to refute such a grave and serious issue with such a juvenile response.

Third, neither monkeys nor humans have been born at any rate for millions of years. Humans (as in homo sapiens - us) have been around for the last 200,000 years give or take. This does get confusing because some anthropologists have a habit of refering to any 'potential' human ancestor as human. Some define "human" by their ability to make tools, so they go around calling the first tool maker (homo habilis) -- who lived 2.5 million years ago -- "human".

But the point or question you are making, I think, is why a creature, having evolved into something else, still exists in its original form today?

It isn't that the whole species evolves. Instead, a group of a specific species can get cut off from the rest and because of the differernces in their particular environment they begin to adapt and/or evolve differently. For instance, its suggested that that humans became various races by adaptations to their individual environments; they do seem to be having trouble alligning this to the time scale but not to the general idea of adaptation -- chemicals in the skin that make the skin darker do provide protections from the sun, etc.

In africa, where most primate(monkeys, etc) and hominid (upright primates like homo erectus) evolution appears to take place, there is an area called the Great Rift. the area is high in primate finds. One theory is that much evolution took place here because groups of a species became seperated by this rift. Those on one side of the rift might have remained the same while those on the other side evolved.

hope this answers your question.

Answer 4

That evolution occurs, even today, there is evidence of that in some small scale, particularly among birds. They have found birds that they new are really new species coming from another species that still exists but the two are no longer able to mate with each other. They can only mate within their own species of bird.

As you go through the scientific evidence for evolution, you can see through archaeological evidence what appears to be a an evolutionary chain. The real problem with the chain is that there is a point where the chain is broken. Normally called the missing link. Scientist feel certain that because the rest of the chain is there, that they can deduce that the missing link had to exist, they just have not found it yet.

I personally believe that they will not find the link because is never existed. Man is peculiar from all beasts in that God gave us powers of reasoning and thinking that far surpass that of any beast on the earth.

What I find even more odd than evolution not continuing to occur, but that if evolution is as the scientists believe it is, why didn't more animals evolve to at least the level if intelligence that man did?

That some animals have a certain degree of intelligence, it is true, but none that have developed with the level of sophistication that man has. That is the one thing that truly mystifies me.

Answer 5

“Did humans evolve from apes?” This is stated as a common question in regards to evolutionary theory. The question is misleading. According to evolutionary theory, the correct question should read, “Are humans Apes?” According to evolutionary theory, the answer would be yes. Human beings are apes that talk, walk upright, breed cattle, smoke, distil liquor, manufacture computers, drill for oil, seek the meaning of life, etc. etc. Evolution classifies groups that are closely related by their traits. Closely related species might look quite different. For example:

Birds: Humming Bird, Penguins, Ostriches, Eagles, etc.

Notice that the list includes an 8 ounce hummingbird and 200 pound ostrich. They look, act, and move quite different. They are both birds. Now look at the list of apes:

Apes: Gibbons, Orangs, Gorillas, Chimps, Humans.

The differences are obvious, but again, per Evolution they are sister species.


“Why are there still monkeys?” By asking this question, your conceptualization of the process of evolution is inaccurate. Look at it this way: You and your siblings were born from your parents. When you were born, you did not replace your parents. You were added to the family. Evolution works in similar ways. A new species will develop in a small subgroup of a population. By doing so, it does not replace the ‘parent’ group. It is added to the list of species. Evolution is not a chain that links one group to the next. It is a branch that spreads out and multiplies. That is how you end up with a family such as canines and felines:

Canines: Dogs, Wolves, Coyotes, Foxes, etc.
Felines: House cat, Lion, Puma, Leopard, Lynx, Saber Tooth, etc.

“Why are there no creatures in the middle of evolution?” There is no beginning, middle, or end to the process. It is just continual change. Does evolution really take a long time to occur? Stephen Gould argues that it might occur quite rapidly, but that under normal conditions, a species might appear unchanged for millions of years. This process, I believe, is poorly understood (not that a Scientist would ever admit it).

“Why are there no species that look “In Between” a monkey and a man?” Actually humans and monkeys are considered somewhat distant relatives, separated by some 18 millions years of evolutionary development. If we ask the same question regarding a man and a chimp, the answer is that such species exist, but have all gone extinct.

Answer 6

A.) There are still monkeys because humans did not kill them all off when we involved into the more intelligent species - probably because we didn't consider them competition. When creatures evolve, the entire population does not necessarily take that step with them. Thus, some are left behind.

B.) ALL creatures are in the middle of evolution. Have you ever heard of a human being born with a vestigial tail? It's a holdover from the days when we actually had them because we needed them. We also have far less hair on our bodies than our ancestors because we didn't need it for warmth and adapted. Instead, we learned to make clothing. Snakes have been known to occassionally be born with tiny legs - a throwback to the time before they evolved away from them. Do you really think that millions of years from now, humans will look exactly as they do now? Absolutely not. We will evolve as our environment requires us. If the world changes in some huge way - gets colder, warmer, whatever - humans will evolve over time to adapt to the new environment.

Answer 7

Humans didn't evolve from monkeys!!! People are more closely related to modern apes than they are to monkeys, but we didn't evolve from apes either. Humans share a common ancestor with modern African apes like gorillas and chimps. Scientists believe that this common ancestor existed approximately 5-8 million years ago. Shortly after that, the species diverged into two separate lines. One of these lineages eventually evolved into gorillas and chimps, and the other evolved into the early human ancestors. So why are there still monkeys is easily answered in this response and the second part of your question is also answered because it's simply not a valid theory.

Answer 8

A: There are still monkeys, but whose to say in a million years those monkeys wont be intelligent. They come from a different genetic strain. Kinda like the difference between house cats and lions. They are both still felions, but with a slightly different genus.

b: There are no species between dinosaurs and humans because of the iridium layer. To explain the Iridium layer would take all day. just look it up.

Answer 9

Biology doesn't work like that. Species evolve to best survive in their native climate according to biological needs, not like adding clothes to your closet in which you have clothes from a few years ago right next to clothes from last year.

When an evolutionary trait strong enough to alter a species occurs, that species BRANCHES from that point forward. Why do we have robins and bluejays in North America and not parrots and Macaws (I'm talking indigenous species here)? And why are monkeys NOT native to North America?

Are the Innuit people of Alaska a different species because they ahve adapted to life in sub-freezing temperatures? Why do African people have darker skin than Europeans if we're ALL human?

If evolution never happened, why are there so many different versions of the same species, ourselves included, all over the planet according to each environment's particular survival needs?

Your threats of reporting any answer you don't like is simply cowardice.

Answer 10

This is facile. There are different environmental pressures within different habitats affecting species in different ways-obviously therefore species evolve differently. One primate might rise to be an apex predator like man while another might struggle to compete for resources and remain at a lower niche in the foodchain. Evolution is an indisputable fact-mankind has a forward facing pelvis, a coccyx and can't synthesise vitamin c like all other primates. That they didn't share a common ancestor is absolutely impossible-now I hope that has finally sunk in?