The "If we came from monkeys..." question...?

Question

Who is to blame for this type of thought process? The asker? Their school systems? Their church?

Who perpetuates "Darwin recanted" "If we came from monkeys" "Missing links"?

Answer 1

These are "memes." I don't know where they originated, but they propagate themselves just like viruses, without needing a central authority to push them along.

Unfortunately, like viruses, they are very difficult to get rid of.


Actually, I do know that the recanting part originated with someone named "Hope" or something like that. The other silly creationist arguments simply started from the naive criticism evolutionary theory took from the masses of the ignorant back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These ideas kept themselves alive through more ignorant people just like memes always do.

Answer 2

Perhaps over generalizing and/or a misread quote or two.

Perhaps they were watching a discovery channel show about evolution and one of the narrators said something like "humans, most closely related to monkeys,....." And from there it became "Humans come from monkeys"

And since this statement is absurd and is similiar to what actual evolution teaches, some religious people feel the need to put down evolution so that their side gets more followers.

I have never heard the "darwin recanted..." before I came to this site, so I don't know about that.

Basically, I think overgeneralized HS biology books are to blame for the "if we came from monkeys" statement. After all, HS isn't exactly known for its best teaching abilities in the world. That's why we have college. lol

Answer 3

I tend to place blame on the asker - it's their ultimate responsibility to defend their own position with facts, and to be able to intelligently talk about the other side of the issue. If you say things like "Darwin recanted," and "If we came from monkeys", you're proving you don't care enough about the argument you're making in favor of your own position!

You can't argue effectively against something you know nothing about.

Answer 4

I blame the church and the schools.

Ask anyone who denies evolution to explain it- 90% of the time they can't.

This is because the church has instilled in people that we were created, and because the teachers weren't taught this in the schools they went to. Simply put- the church started it, and the teachers followed it up (through ignorance- both willing and otherwise).

The ASKER is a problem here too. They are the ones who simply take what they want from the theory, then argue against it without knowing what they are arguing. Again- a case of willful ignorance.

Answer 5

Monkeys are our distant relatives. There is no actual proof that we decended from them. We descended from humanoid ancestors like Homo-erectus, who was definitely not a monkey. If you don't believe me ask a monkey! In fact no scientist ever asked this question so it has been created by those who are the most dead-set against it. It is far more likely that monkeys and other surviving primates are from different but parallel branches in the family tree of Homo-sapiens.
One would be better served to ask if we descended from one celled bacteria because science has indisputable proof that we did.

Answer 6

No ones really to blame its just a thought. The only reason why its taken so heavy is becuase they are the most like us and if you stand them up straight shave them and give them clothes they'll look like us. school systems are not to blame and neither is church for one schools not allowed to convince you about evolution only teach it and for two church would not even argue on this subject because they beleive in a higher being and not the process of life.

Answer 7

roffle at Hoshi.

Anyways, some of it is us Biologists trying to explain things in tiny words to the barely literate....

But no one with half a brain would ask "if we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys"

Can I be honest? I don't think I ever saw it before I got here. It's such a ridiculous question that biology classes don't even prepare you to handle it.

Answer 8

I was left alone to learn whatever I wanted and learned evolution from the Discovery Channel. Most strict Christians are not like that. They ban everything and are very controlling. Why are people home-schooling their children just so they'll be creationists?

Answer 9

They are under the impression that evolution is thought to be under some kind of direction, that if one population of primates progressed enough to give rise to humans, all of them should have. What they don't understand is that if there was still a population of primates that was not under pressure to evolve human traits (like walking upright) then evolution of those traits simply didn't happen. It was not necessary for chimps or gorillas to walk upright.

Answer 10

I think it was people,who back in the old days had to come up with it because they didnt want to believe what the bible had said and proven.I think they came to that conclusion because monkeys are the closest animals that have a similar structure to us. There still was no proof that evolution existed because there had to be someone who created the monkeys and caused them to evolve.stuff like that jus cant happen.