Will you people who believe in evolution tell me why there are still monkeys, and can you explain the eyeball?

Answer 1

This question gets asked so often that some people in Religion & Science have made a drinking game of it; every time someone asks, they take a drink. You may get some answers that say "Swig" or "Gulp" or "Thanks for the excuse to drink". That's what they mean. If you do a search on "still monkies", "still monkeys" and "still apes" you'll get roughly 2 - 3 per day since YA started.

Here is a short answer:

Because they evolved from our common ancestor too. We humans got smarter. The great apes, including chimpanzees, got stronger. They are stronger than us humans. (A 180-pound chimp would wipe the floor with a 180-pound human, even a college wrestler.) I don't expect you to believe that, but if you try hard enough you can understand it.

Here is a little something extra for you, what the Cajuns call "lagniappe", like the free cookie the baker gives the kids when Mom buys a big birthday cake:

Back in 1776, monarchists (Monarchists are people who want to be ruled by a king or queen, not butterfly fanciers.) argued against democracy as a form of government. They said it was absurd to believe that "All men are created equal" because anyone could see men came in different heights, weights and colors. Case closed.

My point is not about democracy. It is about debate. Before you argue about something, you should understand it. If you don't understand it, you'll look foolish. One night on the "Saturday Night Live" TV show, Gilda Radner argued vehemently against the "Deaf Penalty", instead of the "Death Penalty". She looked absurd and we all laughed until the beer came out our noses, which was what she wanted. You don't want people to laugh at you.

In a serious debate, you should understand the other side. Note that I didn't say "Believe". Understanding is not the same as believing. If you were to study 20th century European Political history, you would have to understand several forms of government: communism (the USSR), fascism (Germany, Italy), socialism (Lots of countries), socialist democracy, capitalistic democracy and constitutional monarchy. You would not believe in all of them; you COULD not believe in all of them at once. If you tried, your head would explode. You would, however, have to understand their basic concepts.

If you were to study comparative religion, you would have to understand what Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Taoists and Confucians believe. You would not have to convert to a new religion every week, but you would have to understand the other ones. You would not get very far in your studies if you dismissed all the other ones as "wrong". They believe their path is the right one just as strongly as you believe your path is the right one.

99% of the biologists alive today believe that species evolve, and that the theory of evolution is the best explanation we have for the diversity of life. Christian biologists, Jewish biologists, Muslim biologists, Hindu biologists, Buddhist biologists; Australian, Bolivian and Chinese biologists; 99% of them believe it is the best explanation. Yes, it is only a theory. Planetary motion - the theory that the earth went around the sun, not vice versa - was only a theory for a long time. Some people still don't believe it.

If you are truly curious, ask your minister to give you a short, reasoned explanation of evolution. Tell him you don't want to believe it, of course; you just want to understand it. If he says he can't because it is wrong, he is as ignorant as those monarchists I mentioned above.

Answer 2

There are still monkeys because people did not evolve from monkeys. Humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor which no longer exists.

Nor are humans the next step in any monkey evolution. Monkeys have no more of a chance of evolving into humans as humans do monkeys.

As for the eyeball, I assume you are refering to the "eyeballs can't work if parts are missing argument"

This argument is based on faulty logic. Eyes in living kingdom range from photosensitive cells that can only detect whether light is there, to complex structures that can detect images in high detail.

The problem with the "eyeball" argument is that is makes the false assumption that whatever preceeded, say the human eyeball, must have been incomplete. This is not true.
An Earth worms photosensitive skin patch is just as complete to the Earthworm as a human eye is to a human.

Our non-human ancestors had eyes which were complete for the species and which were as functioning as they needed to be.

WIthin a species we can sometimes find cases where the eye did not form properly and these individuals are often blind though not always completely. One might argue that people who are color blind have incomplete eyes because they lack the proper color receptors that most of the population has but a person who is red green colorblind may argue against this. Many birds can percieve more colors than a human and can even detect UV light readily. That does not mean our own eyes are incomplete though.

Answer 3

There are monkeys because they evolved in different ways than ours. They didn't need to get large brains because they didn't face chalenges like we had, and they didn't get a sophisticated way to comunicate to others like us. The language permited for the human beeings to have a tremendous development in their brains, because it allowd the storage of more knowledge by the direct information from brain to brain, and not only by instinct, or genetic information. To understand about the evolution of our eyes I strongly recomend you to read the book Climbing Mount Improbable, by Richard Dawkins. In one of its chapters you can read a convincing explanation of the development of the eye, since the most humble animal until the human eye. It's fascinating!

Answer 4

evolution is NOT about coming from monkeys. it's taught in modern biology that monkeys and humans are closely related and that we have the same ancestors. nobody is saying people are a derivative of monkeys that's just rediculous. lol for someone to think that. Idk what you mean about "the eyeball"...

Answer 5

before everything, monkeys are a straightforward ancestor. yet truly what's worse, understanding that we developed from here or from some imaginary being the we will not clarify, do no longer understand, and could't see and needs to 'lord' over us? i visit take the monkey any day.