I was told that the Bible is not made to be historically accurate, but spiritually accurate. If this is true, then humans really did evolve from apes. So that made me wonder, will other animals evolve into more intelligent species? Like civilized dogs, cows, or llamas. What would the world come to then? Would animals have jobs and income, pay taxes, live in houses, and drive cars? Also, would there be new species formed, like if a human person married a human dog? (I know that's really gross to think of, but if they're both human, then who knows what could happen?) Another question is, do you think that humans may also evolve into creatures of different sizes or shapes?
2007-03-16 09:27:40 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
Hey I didn't mean that they would actually evolve INTO humans, just highly intelligent life-forms with similar brains as humans. For example, elephants might evolve into highly-intelligent elephants who think the same way as humans, but they just look like elephants instead of people, get it??
2007-03-16 09:43:35 · update #1
1) We didn't evolve from apes. We evolved from hominids, which evolved from animals that had traits shared by both apes and humans, but were neither.
2) There is no way of determining how certain animals will wind up evolving. There are just too many factors that would have to be guessed at. For just one thing, evolution happens fastest after a mass extinction, which has yet to happen in the existence of humans. We can't even know for sure if, when, or how the next mass extinction will occur. Not to mention which animals will adapt and evolve, or how.
3) Although we cannot predict how evolution will progress, we can detect how it went, and then make educated guesses as to why. For example, the Yanoconodon was a small, rodent like mammal that lived during the age of dinosaurs. The dinosaurs died out as a result of a massive asteroid impact off of what is now the coast of Yucatan, Mexico. Hundreds of millions of tons of rock and debris was thrown up into the atmosphere. As this debris rained back down, it heated up, raising the ambient temperature of the earth to scorching levels. Yanoconodon and other animals like him would have a better chance of survival because they were burrowing creatures, and coud have escaped the heat above ground. Later, when this heat dissipated and the dust continued to block the sun, there would have been a long ice age. In this instance as well, small burrowers would have a better chance of survival. But there is still no way to accurately predict how these small creatures would eventually evolve.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070314/sc_nm/mammal_fossil_dc;_ylt=AmMyOFEsUNHgsgTLF9J9E2cPLBIF
El Chistoso
2007-03-16 10:20:38 · answer #1 · answered by elchistoso69 5 · 4⤊ 0⤋
"I was told that the Bible is not made to be historically accurate, but spiritually accurate. "
Yes, that is what a lot of people, including very religious people, believe. It's pretty close to what the Catholic church teaches. Many Christians hold that the New Testament is much more historically accurate than the Old Testament.
" then humans really did evolve from apes"
No. Humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor. Big difference.
"So that made me wonder, will other animals evolve into more intelligent species? "
Possibly, but not necessarily. There is nothing special about intelligence ... except to us. Sometimes a long neck is better, or a lighter body (for flight), or speed, or strength, whatever.
Organisms in nature find many different ways to gain some advantage in nature. Intelligence just happens to be ours.
"Also, would there be new species formed, like if a human person married a human dog?"
Nope. It is not possible to breed animals of different species. (That's what the word "species" means.) That doesn't prevent a person from "marrying" a dog, of course ... what stops it is the fact that a dog cannot know what "marriage" is and can therefore not say "I do". (I'm actually being half serious here ... marriage has to be between two consenting parties ... a dog cannot "consent.")
"Another question is, do you think that humans may also evolve into creatures of different sizes or shapes?"
It is very possible that humans will evolve *as a species*. But it is very unlikely that they will branch into several different species. Branching requires genetic isolation for *many* generations ... and because of the technology of travel, that is unlikely to happen while we are on earth. However, if we develop space travel, and a group of humans gets isolated from the rest of the species ... then yes, over many many generations they will most likely have evolved to be very different ... perhaps even a different species.
2007-03-16 18:12:34 · answer #2 · answered by secretsauce 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
highly unlikely!
apes are the animals that most closely resemble humans. there are no other animals who resemble humans through DNA and who resemble humans physiologically as the ape. it's not like an elephant can evolve into a human-like elephant in a few million years. It just wouldn't happen. We're not even in the same tree branch of life!
2007-03-16 16:38:17 · answer #3 · answered by KOI 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It is difficult to say that other animals will or will not evolve. It took hundreds of millions of years for apes to evolve into humans so I don't think it's anything to worry about today, but it's not impossible that in a few million years the world might be run by an intelligent bipedal platypus. How would we look with beaks?
2007-03-16 16:33:24 · answer #4 · answered by dusmul78 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Evolution doesn't really have a direction or an end other than to favor those who reproduce.
If there were selection pressure on racoons or pandas or rhesus monkeys to develop better cognitive skills and use their hands for making tools, then we might get another intelligent species on the planet. It's unlikely now, as man will tend to keep the poor animal down -- I anticipate that chimps, gorillas, and orang-utans, closer to us in mental faculties than the animals I've listed, will be functionally extinct in less than a century.
2007-03-16 17:12:56 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
no because the apes are the only spieces that are MOST similar to HUMANS;. the monkey DNA is similar to our human DNA, but there are some differences. Humans woudn't evolve from anything else, especially marine type animals!
2007-03-16 16:36:05 · answer #6 · answered by pimp_knuckles 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, according to some scientists, if the dinosaurs weren't extinct they'd start to evolve into a human-like shape. Because of global warming (Booo) other animals may not evolve into us, but we may "evolve" into other animals (e.g. camels who can survive heat) by gaining survival features (like losing little water). Other animals may eventually evolve into intelligent beings: that's if us humans dont kill them first(!)
2007-03-16 16:35:42 · answer #7 · answered by jasonahmed 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋