For those people who believe that we evolved from monkeys...?

Question

(or was it apes?) Anyway, how come we stopped evolving?

Ok, so most of you are mad at me and think that we are still evolving. I didn't know this is such a 'painful' subject, I just wanted to know your thoughts about it, so whatever.

Answer 1

Yes, and how is it that worms have more sense than scientists.

Answer 2

Painful subject? Hardly! The evolutionary process involves natural selection and the survival of the fittest. Our current state of technology has lead us to a point of the survival of almost everyone. In fact, some traits that would have disappeared years ago are now more prevalent. Bad eyesight is an example. The invention of glasses has made it possible for couples who both have poor eyesight to pass on the genes for that mutation. Some species, such as sharks, stopped evolving long before we did because they reached a state of being one of the fittest creatures in the sea. Other less obvious life forms are evolving at an alarming and dangerous rate because of our own attempts to control our own fates. Some forms of bacteria have been evolving into strains that can resist our antibiotics. We have had some less obvious changes in our bodies that would not impress people who probably think we would have grown wings or jet propulsion if we were really evolving. One example would be various molecular defenses against malaria. More obvious traits have changed with our ability to travel around the world easier than before. We see more people of races simply becoming races of their own. Races evolved and developed slowly over time when transportation was more limiting. The races didn't come from any silly story in the bible. They evolved and are evolving again. There, that was a rational and very sound answer to your question. Not painful at all.

Answer 3

Evolution takes a number of generations. We're not talking 3 or 4, which are all you'll see in a lifetime. Much more than that. People often point to bacteria for a way to see evolution happening. That's because with bacteria, a division can occur on a time span close to 20 minutes. That's 100 generations in less than two days. If you wait a few days, you may see some real change. Going back a hundred generations of man would put us in BCE times. So yes, it's happening. No, it's not practically observable considering we'd need records from much longer ago than we have.

Answer 4

We did not evolve from monkies or apes. We evolved from a common ancestor.

You have to think of man evolving over millions of years (like 65 million).

There is evidence of evolution, look at the neanderthals as one example. The reason you think we have stopped is becuase man has not had a major change in recordable history. But that is only 7,000 years. Not the millions needed to see the change.

However small things are happening. I went to see the dentist to have a wisdom tooth removed a few weeks back. An x-ra was taken and I only had 2 wisdom teeth to begin with. I said to my dentist "Am I some sort of freak then?". "No" she replied "most people only have two these day, and I sometimes see people with only one or even none. We no longer require wisdom teeth so we are working them out of our makeup".

Sounds a bit like evolution to me.

Have you notice that more women are becoming more masculine in shape. There are less women with child bearing hips. As women no longer keep reproducing until they can't we don't need hips to support a large number of pregnacies.

Sounds a bit like evolution to me.

Answer 5

Okay, my beliefs are kind of complicated, and I don't really have the time to explain them, but I don't think that we evolved from apes (I am a Christian, and NO, I AM NOT A CONSERVATIVE) but I think that now that we exist, we are evolving. The suits of armor that people in the middle ages wore do not fit people alive today, and the steps of the Mayan pyramids are too small for people to walk up without difficulty. We aren't ever going to change too far beyond how we are now (the world will end before then, probably), but we are changing right now.

Answer 6

NO-ONE - repeat, NO-ONE - believes we evolved from monkeys! OR apes! Haven't you noticed that monkeys and apes are both still here?? Also, who told you we have stopped evolving? No living thing has stopped evolving, or ever will stop evolving, for biological evolution is an intrinsic element of biological life as designed and created by God. Biological life cannot exist without evolving.
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Answer 7

Everything is still evolving on a geologic time scale (like millions of years). You will only see 1-2 human generations before you're dead. Your whole life is just a snapshot on evolutionary or geologic timescales.

Natural selection (essentially "survival of the fittest") is a mechanism for evolution of a species. Because anybody in our free societies in the western world can be successful and have lots of children (i.e. be fit), our species may not change much. Maybe over time increased racial mixing will actually change the way the human species as a whole, looks. By the way, the existence of races can be considered evidence of evolutionary adaptation due to geographic isolation, etc.

It is interesting to note that the human population is exploding in third world countries while in industrialized nations people choose not to have as many kids. For all I know that may set us on different evolutionary paths. More generations provides more opportunities for natural selection and genetic adaptation or whatever. While in industrialized nations, our use of tools is unprecedented in the animal kingdom and history. So much so, that we are now concerned that we are altering the earth's atmosphere (i.e. climate change). This may eventually lead to our demise, as we change the planet at a much more rapid rate than it took for us to grow up on it, and as part of it, over the last bazillion years.

Answer 8

1. We did not evolve from monkeys. We have a common mammalian ancestor as proved by DNA tests.
2. We have not stopped evolving. Certain types of DNA have a very steady rate of change that never stops and others are more stop and go.
3.Evolutionary changes generally occur over
many generations. Changes due to selective breeding, nutrition and adaptation occur relatively rapidly as you will see in any history museum (we are taller). Consider that it has been 1000 generations (40,000 years) since Cro Magnon man, the immediate and anatomically very similar predecessor to homo sapiens (us), appeared and more than 3200 generations since the appearance of homo neanderthalis, Cro Magnon's forerunner. Obviously if your child is a mere 1/1000th different, you will hardly be expected to notice, but the changes that accumulate over 140,000 years are noticeable.

Answer 9

We are not evolving. We never evolved. In fact, we are devolving.

As mutations have occurred in the race, we have developed weaknesses, propensities for various diseases, pathological conditions & c.

Why do we have conditions like cancer, diabetes,allergies, and arthritis? Why haven't we evolved beyone these conditions?

The truth is, we have become susceptable to these things as a result of mutations. Out bodies have become weaker and more prone to disease. Mutations have weakened our immune system.

Just like when you make a photocopy of a photocopy. Keep making copies and watch what happens. It takes a lot longer with humans and animals, but the principle is the same. Errors creep in.

Answer 10

Actually we didn't stop. Although one could make the argument that our evolution was greatly slowed by our ability to think and subsequent advances in medicine and technology.
For example, some think that the human populace is immune to the Black Plague. The idea is that all of those susceptible to it were wiped out and thus we can't catch it anymore.
Another school of thought is that we reached dominance in our biological niche. We didn't need to evolve further because we aren't competing with any other creature on the planet (much like killer whales don't need to compete with any other sea predators; they're the best there is).

Answer 11

Yes, as others have said, we haven't stopped evolving.

Average human height has measurably gone up in the last few centuries, pinky toes are becoming smaller, to name a few examples.

You need to understand that human evolution, aside from everything that existed before, took MILLIONS of years. It will likely be thousands of years before any noticable difference would occur, outside any worldwide advantageous mutation in human genes.