Evolution??? I am trying to understand it.?

Question

I have a question for those who believe in evolution. I am not knocking your beliefs, I am just trying to understand it better. I have been watching television shows, and reading up on it. From what I have gathered, humans supposingly evolved from apes.

If that is the case, where did the apes evolve from? And whatever the apes evolved from, what did that evolve from?

Also, why are we not still evolving. Why isn't there some other species that evolved from humans?

I guess my question is, if evolution is real, then that means everything evolved from something else, so what was the very first thing everything evolved from, and where did that first thing come from? Where did it all supposingly start?

Hypothetically speaking, if the whole world evolved around a grain of dirt, where did that grain of dirt come from?

It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Answer 1

It's easier if you look at one subject at a time instead of trying to lump it all into one complex mass at the start.

Evolution is simply the explanation that the diversity of life is due to descent with modification. To help you understand that, take a look at your own genetics. You are not exactly like either of your parents, nor are you simply a mixture of the two. You probably have some genetic material that is totally new due to minor mutations. These minor mutations will be passed to future generations just as likely as any other genes, unless they are the type of mutation that keeps you from passing on genes (like if it makes you not be able to get away from something that wants to eat you and you become a snack before you have children). That is natural selection, one of the diving forces for evolution. You asked why humans aren't still evolving. If you aren't a clone of your ancestors, then we still are evolving. I sometimes wonder what would happen if conditions in the world changed and something like trisomy 21 became an advantage instead of a disadvantage.

One problem I see with the term "species" is that it is an attempt to shoehorn a dynamic system into a static nomenclature. It is like trying to divide a person's growing from an infant into an adult. At exactly what point do you become an adult? The reason evolution was proposed in the first place is because when they started to catalog all the different species in a precise manner a few hundred years ago, they ran into many gray areas where one species graded into another. It all started with men like Linnaeus who set out to describe all plants and animals as if they never changed.

Not only do I think humans evolved from apes, I don't see any really good reason to think that we have evolved to a point that we can't still be in the biological family Hominidae. Google for Hominidae and look at the features it takes to be in that biological family, we are hominids as surely as we are mammals, but nobody seems to have a problem with us being included in the same biological class as dogs or whales.

Apes evolved from earlier primates, we have a decent enough fossil record that shows of the history to know that is what happened, and recent work with genetics point out shared mutations with our closest relatives indicating a common ancestor.

When you ask about where the first life came from, you leave the subject of evolution and get into abiogenesis. Evolution only covers life after it started, and it wouldn't matter if life always had existed, started with magic, or was the result of natural chemical reactions with non-living molecules.

Considering complex molecules identical to some of those that are basic to life can be found in material in space object where its unlikely life ever has been, I think life probable started with complex chemical reactions in non-living material. Of course, you also indicate that would have to come from somewhere, and I agree. No matter what explanation you have for how life got here you will eventually get to the same paradox, "where did THAT come from". I'm happy not knowing or understanding that, it seems better to accept that there are some things we just don't know and maybe never will than to accept an answer that sounds like it's absolutely positive from the start and doesn't change even when new evidence shows up that it can't explain. Because then you quit looking for the right answers and have no chance of ever knowing the real explanation.

In the end my advice is to look at things in smaller pieces, it'll make better sense. For instance, do some research on why there are mules but no purebred mules as it relates to evolution, or where a grass called Spartina anglica came from. On the other hand, if looking for the right answer is too hard, there are plenty of people willing to tell you they have the ultimate truth on the matter. Most of them end up wanting a donation at some point, though.

Answer 2

>why are we not still evolving?
We are.
>Why isn't there some other species that evolved from humans?
Why hasn't my four year-old had kids yet? Give it time. And bear in mind that the selective pressures on modern human beings are very very small.
>Where did it all supposingly start?
This isn't about evolution as such. The biological theory of evolution by natural selection is about what happens to living organisms once they exist. Why they exist in the first place is a different question.

It's a bit like asking: if sexual reproduction is real, then that means everyone is the child of someone else, so what was the very first thing that got pregnant and where did that first thing come from?

I don't think you'd use this argument to claim that sexual reproduction doesn't happen (however little we want to imagine our parents doing it).

The question of where the first replicating organisms came from is really a question about chemistry. The precise details of what mixed with what in what precise circumstances and when are more or less impossible to find. But there are many possibilities and hypotheses about what happened.

But even if you believe the first replicating organisms were created by God, that has nothing to do with evolution as such. Those organisms would just start evolving to fit their habitats, just as a puddle fits the hole in the ground that it fills, regardless of how the water got there.

Answer 3

Evolution is basically a change in the DNA of an organism. Each time a cell reproduces there is a chance of an error occuring in the DNA replication. That why you get moles and spots on your skin. This occurs over a period of time.To get creater changes you need to wait a much longer period of time. Geologist say that the Earth has been around for over 4 billion years.

The first "life" would have been a complex chemical structure. Which became a single celled organism. Small changes would have occurred in the DNA and it would have evolved into a multicellular organism like a algae or something in a pond.

Life would have gotten bigger and started to become different from each other as it started to spread and grow in different environments. (Like humans from around the world have different skin colours.) The animals would have gotten bigger and more complex over time, dinosaurs etc etc until we got to mammals. We share 97% of our DNA with monkeys so practically speaking we're pretty similar. (Just less hairy and smarter.)

Yes, we are still evolving. It just happens to slowly for us to see. We are talking 3 or so million years since we branched off from the apes. There will be another species that branches off from humans. But you and I will be long dead before it happens. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6057734.stm )

If you want to have a better understanding, you just have to look at the influenza virus. Every year the flu changes just a little bit so it last years vaccine isn't as effective. It only changes slightly but just enought so the body can't recognise it. But it stays pretty much the same and does the same thing to our body.

Basically change happens, and it takes time. The bigger the change the longer the time.

(I don't think this question should become a debate on evolution VS creationism.)

You are free to believe what you wish, and can even believe in a combination of both. Some people believe God created the universe/world and then we evolved. I hope you understand a little more about evolution.

Answer 4

> humans supposingly evolved from apes.
Yes. We have many hominid fossils, and our own DNA, linking us to the other great apes.

> where did the apes evolve from?
Other great apes. Going back further, lesser apes. Going back further, old world monkeys. Going back further, probably a prosimian primate similar to a lemur.

> why are we not still evolving
We are indeed still evolving.

> Why isn't there some other species that evolved from humans?
We have a lot of gene flow, and so speciation hasn't occurred. If, say, Japan or Australia had remained isolated for another couple of hundred thousand years, then there might have been enough mutation/genetic drift for hypothetical new species of Homo to have arisen in these places.
...and it's possible that a new species did arise from Homo sapiens -- look up Homo floriensis.

Speciation usually requires reproductive isolation of a population for a long period of time. We just haven't been around long enough, or had isolated populations long enough, for it to happen. We did have isolated populations long enough to separate into different races, though!

> where did that first thing come from? Where did it all supposingly start?
We're made from chemicals that were readily available in other forms. Still in the hypothesis stage is abiogenesis -- the possibility that a "protobiont" -- a simple living thing, came together from nonliving "primordial soup" as a result of physical and chemical processes.

> where did that grain of dirt come from?
Our elements were made in supernova or hypernova. Gravity gathered the stuff together, over a period of billions of years, making our solar system.

Answer 5

The first thing you need to try to understand is that evolution takes millions of years whether it is humans, animals or plants. This is the part that I struggle with the most because we (humans) have only been on this planet (as far as we know) for a fraction of a second in comparisson to the age of the earth and yet in that time we have managed to put our planet and ourselves on the brink of destruction if not extinction. I don't believe we evolved from apes simply because if we did shouldn't the apes now be gone? or at the very least shouldn't they have evolved into a different species? And while we are asking questions (I know I'm going to tick a few people off with this but please understand I respect the people who believe in global warming) anyway if we are asking these questions shouldn't someone stand up and say "Hey, we have only been able to monitor weather conditions and planet conditions for less than a fraction of a second in comparisson to the age of the earth. In other words, we have been gathering data on our planet for about 100 years and our planet is BILLIONS of years old. Yet we say that human activity is destroying our planet. I will be this first one to say I believe that some of our activities do have an affect on our planet but I think the concept of global warming is way overrated. After all if you open your front door in the middle of a blizard to try to warm up the air and stop the blizard, the warm air from your house will affect the air around the door but won't change the blizard. Just my opinion>

Answer 6

I think evolution is very plausible. After all the Universe evolved from the Big Bang. The motor car evolved from the horse and buggy. The jet engine evolved from the balloon. It seems evolution is involved with a stress on a system or a boost to a system. A change of circumstances creates an environment that is conducive to a new sometimes more advanced species.
If you take an acorn it includes all the factors that will produce a viable oak tree given probable environmental conditions. If environmental conditions change the previously adapted system will no longer be viable. The system can then come to a halt or throw up a new system which can cope with the new environment. So the system as a whole is able to generate viable adaptations for its sub-systems.

Answer 7

Haysoos knows what he is talking about. The last posted did not in my opinion. Evolution does not happen unless there is a reason for it to happen. Our bodies are idealized to suit a particular niche. Think of a cat as an example. A cat has canine teeth that are ideally suited to its predatory niche. There is no reason for it to evolve longer teeth. Now if it were to move into a niche, lets say it got stranded on a desert island, and it needed longer teeth to deal with a lizard living on that island. In that case, the cats on this island would eventually evolve longer teeth through mutations and selection of favorable mutations. Humans may have reached a form where we are not evolving much but we cannot say for sure. There are animals such as turtles that haven't changed much for millions of years since they reached a idealized form to suit their environment. The apes are simply tailess monkeys that grew larger. Our ancestors 20 million years ago were the ancestors of living Asian / African monkeys. We know this due to DNA studies and comparison of features and detailed fossil studies. These monkey human ancestors branched off, one evolving into modern monkeys and another evolving into apes. These apes grew large and intelligent. They branched off in such a way, some surviving, some not until we achieved the living species today. The fossil record is incomplete but the evidence has be piling up in favor of evolution. As a geologist, I understand where the grain of dirt came from. Life is a far more complex problem, and probably came from mixures of hydrocarbon chemicals in the early history of the earth. It took billions of years. If you are really interested in the truth, it is truly a fascinating theory but we still have lots to learn.

Answer 8

Okay I am going to try my hand at this, I don't know if this will help at all but here we go =P.

Supposedly when the earth was being created from the big bang, while it was forming and collecting mass from the gravitational pull from the sun, it was already full of nutrients and such that the materials earth is made from has with it. Once it was all formed, there was mostly water, not so much land, but with this water, its not the water we have today. It was super rich in minerals and elements and such. This is what "Primordial Ooze" is when they refer to that.
No one is completely sure but many people think that because of huge lightening storms because of the high nitrogen in the air at the time that lightning was striking the water and this heat and energy started to fuse the minerals and nutrients and elements into microscopic beings single celled organisms. Once they were formed this is where Evolution takes place. Certain traits from the single celled organisms did better then others and this would eventually lead to multicelled organisms that would have come about through mutation which is really the whole secret behind evolution. This mutations take hundreds and thousands of years to become the norm in creatures but it all has to do with area they are in, What they have to eat and defend against. and such.
As time goes by these organisms would evolve into fish type things and oceanic mammals (Like whale and dolphin type creatures) come about. Then for reasons that made sense to them, mostly for survival reasons many think many of these mammal slowly adapted to land along with more reptilian type creatures as well. and then again depending on where they were, what food was available, and what they had to defend from, they evolved for that reason.
Humans came from a humanoid type ape creature, that split two ways pretty much. One section stayed more ape/monkey like, and others became more human like as the years went on and further divided into all the different types of apes, monkeys and such, while the many different forms of humanoid creatures leading up to humans occured.
And the thing is we are still evolving, the thing is evolution is a very slow process. You will not notice people evolving in your life time. but if you look back through more recent time, Humans today are generally taller then those of the 1700s, not a huge example (no pun intended) but that's the thing that will lead possible to a newer form of man kind.

And not knocking your beliefs, but if God created earth and the universe... where did God come from? I would really like to know your answer for that in all seriousness. I find it intriguing.

Answer 9

Humans are still evolving. It's just happening really, really s-l-o-w-l-y. Think about geologic time -- every rock you see around you is moving, too. It's just happening so slowly, you can't see it. Instead of us CHANGING in the way we look, our brain mass is changing and because of new treatments and cures to illness we continue to survive longer. Tay-Sachs disease may become be a thing of the past, because of increased genetic testing. People are not passing along this gene as they used too. That is evolution. Just not the way we normally think of it.

Another way of saying how we have evolved is an article from the BBC which said that a group of scientists measured a bunch of skulls from victims of the Black Plague and found that our cranial vaults/foreheads have increased significantly.

Answer 10

You can trace life and all the species back to the beginning millions of years ago with plant life (algae). We are still evolving but the change is gradual. Stick around for 100000 years or so and you may see a difference. If you look at short lived stuff like fruit flies, you can see small changes in a much shorter time.