Do you really consider yourself a descendant of the monkey?

Answer 1

Dang..monkeys really? And here I thought we came from apes..my bad.

Answer 2

Are there only two possibilities?

A very interesting book, "The Hidden History of the Human Race" Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, first published by Govardhan Hill in 1993, presents evidence for homo sapien existence MILLIONS of years before the commonly-accepted view.

This book contains photos, charts and quotations from anthropologists. It describes fossil finds that show "modern" man and "cave men" existing simultaneously. For anyone who has a problem with the current views of the theory/ies of evolution, this is a great read. Of course, it completely precludes a 6,000-year history for mankind, so it's a battering ram for biblical belief in the geneaological reconstruction of human history based on the Bible record.

My personal answer to your question is that I don't know. It's okay not to know. It's not okay to stop looking for answers.

Answer 3

Have you ever actually read anything on the theory of natural selection? It does not start or end with monkey's as our ancestors. There are many side roads, some which deadend. If you readd material on this subject you will see that much of makes a lot of sense. You will also see that it does not preclude the existance of a creator being.

Answer 4

I dont, and anyway the theory is that we are cousins of the ape not the descendent. I do not have enough Scientific training to say anything, but I do find it hard to believe that we are descended from a rat

Answer 5

No, I consider myself the descendant of a common ancestor with monkeys.

And incidentally, monkeys make better company than a lot of people I encounter.

Answer 6

No, but a close relative. We all are.

Humans are apes, descended from earlier apes. We didn't evolve from monkeys, but rather monkeys and apes had a common ancestor millions of years ago. Incidentally, the most obvious way to tell if something is an ape or a monkey is that monkeys have tails, and apes (such as humans) do not.

Our closest relatives are chimpanzees, and the most recent common ancestor of both humans and chimpanzees was approximately 6 million years ago.

The way to understand our origins is to remember that living organisms are in a state of constant change - It's not that evolution *can* occur, but that it *must* occur, simply because there is no mechanism in living organisms to ensure perfect, flawless reproduction for ever.

Suppose you could study a population of chimpanzees in the jungle, on a timescale of millions of years. Clearly, each individual only lives a few decades, so the population is constantly being succeeded by individuals which are different from their parents, because reproduction is imperfect - and remember, this is *inevitable*. It can't *not* happen. All the time this population is inter-breeding, the genes are getting mixed together, and only genes which work well with all other chimpanzee genes will tend to get passed down to successive generations (because individuals with genes that don't work well together will tend not to survive and reproduce).

However, suppose that circumstances arise which cause a group to become genetically isolated from other chimpanzees. This could be as a result of an accident of geography (e.g. an impassable river) or breeding preference or simply great distance. There will develop two distinct groups of chimpanzees which can never again exchange genes, because they have become different enough that mating will not produce viable offspring. This is what biologists define as speciation - i.e. the population has forever split into two distinct groups. Biologists have observed many instances of speciation, so there is no doubt that it occurs.

Assuming that both groups continue to survive, it is again *inevitable* that they will diverge genetically - There is no possible way that both groups, isolated and independent from each other, can change in exactly the same ways, and the longer they continue to breed, the more different they will become. Over millions of years, given that the rate of genetic change via mutation tends to remain fairly constant, the two groups will become as distinct as today's chimpanzees and humans are from each other, and from their most recent common ancestor.

All this is based on what we *know* is true - it's not supposition or guesswork, and remember it's not just possible, it absolutely *has* to happen, because there is no mechanism in biology to make reproduction a 100% perfect, flawless process.

NB: The reason we're classed as apes is that there is no valid way to group all the other apes together that doesn't also apply to humans. In other words, whatever criteria you use to define what is an ape, in order to include chimpanzees, gorillas, orangs and gibbons, humans will also fit those criteria. Indeed, chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than to gorillas, and gorillas are more closely related to humans and chimpanzees than they are to orangs, so any classification that separated humans out from those other apes would not make any sense.

Hope this helps.

Answer 7

NO...People were created in the image of God and monkeys are just monkeys..We are not descendants of them!

Answer 8

I consider the monkey and myself to have both come from a similar ape like ancestor. I (and the system of biological classification) consider myself and the monkey to be of the same order - "primate".

Answer 9

You and I cam from an Ape like creature very similar to a monkey. If you would have listened in school you would know that! We are relatives of monkeys not an actual monkey.. DUH

Explain how our bones slowly go back to an a ape like creature.. you can't. not with a bible, but with scientific proof you can.

Answer 10

The monkey?

Which one in particular, because I can tell you it's been a while since one was an integral part of my family tree. Some people are a bit closer to their roots than others, though.

Answer 11

Do you consider yourself a descendant from a pile of dirt and a rib?