A question to those who subscibe to the theory of Evolution?

Question

I have listened as it was explained to me that mankind did not evolve from apes, but from a "common ancestor"...
I have wondered about Australia. I listened carefully as it was explained to me that the animals in Australia are so different from animals elsewhere, because the continent of Australia is cut off from the rest of the world.
Makes sense...
But then, how did the aborigines get there? I mean, there don't seem to be any apes about...and yet, there are men there.
I've been told that there was no 'land bridge'...that is why Australia has animals that can't be found anywhere else, like kangaroos, koala bears, and the duckbilled platypus.
But obviously, the aborigines didn't evolve from any of these...
I'm not trying to dis the theory...but I do find myself with alot of questions.
If anyone has any serious answers that might be helpful, I would be grateful...
I'll try to weed them out from among all the sarcastic answers I know are coming...
*sigh*

The problem with the "Pangea" explanation is that there are no other animals in Australia that could be explained this way. Surely, when the super continent split up, it took all the rest of the species with it?
The problem with the boat idea is that Australia is simply too far away. Try going from the tip of South Africa to Australia in a primitive boat...a canoe, or a longboat...and see how far you get. No aborigine would think about sailing for Africa in one of those things...why not?
I do want to understand more about evolution...just because I am a Christian, doesn't mean that I try to limit God as to how He did His creating...
But there are just some questions that I have that need answers.
This is one of them...

OK, so, during an ice age, men built boats and sailed in them away from somewhere warm, and toward a colder land...island hopping all the way....
Does that sound like something you might do?
I dunno...I don't think I would...

Answer 1

It's a great question.

ALL humans originated in Africa.

As Bad Liberal mentions - Pangea has nothing to do with Human populations and "Guns, Germs, and Steel" is an excellent book (and decent PBS documentary) and will tell you why each continent is the way it is, why there is great inequity between continents and geographical locations.

If your question is specifically about Australia, I suggest the PBS/National Geographic documentary (haven't read the book) "Journey of Man" by Spencer Wells. Interestingly, Australia seems to be second only to Africa in starting human population - why do you have Black people in Africa *AND* Australia, but no where in between? Short version: one of the first group of Africans who left went up through Asia, never settled, crossed through land bridges of the Islands of the East Indies, and traveled by boat from New Guinea to Australia (shorter distance back then). There have been people in Australia for 40 - 50 thousand years and they had tools before most Eurasian peoples.

My answer is basic, but it may help direct further internet searches and the materials I mentioned are presented in books or in truncated fashion in documentaries available on DVD - (or perhaps YouTube/Google Video?).

Feel free not to take my word on it; there are plenty of books and materials that will explain it far better than I that were written by far more qualified people then myself.

Answer 2

The aborigines sailed there, the same way the Hawaiians got where they are. In all likelihood they island-hopped rather than make one long journey, but they got there in the end - the same way all people populated islands (Madagascar, Jamaica and so on). The thing about people is we're intelligent, we can make boats and sail places; which explains why we pop up where other animals don't.

*edit* Australia ranges from tropical to desert to temperate. It's huge. Even during the ice age it must have been at least partially warm. Plus if it was during the ice age that people migrated there then sea levels would have been lower, and all the islands would have been bigger (and possibly even more numerous)

There's plenty of reasons why people migrate, and would be desperate enough to take pretty big risks. Before farming competition for food was intense. Think of how much food you eat a day. You have that, the rest of your (probably large by modern standards) family to support, and maybe quite a lot of other people, all of whom depending on what they can hunt or gather. Not a lot of people can survive in one place if they're subsisting on that sort of diet, which means people may well have decided crossing the sea to somewhere new was a good idea, if it meant that they'd have a better chance of catching enough food.

But whether or not you'd do it is irrelevent, because pretty obviously people did. Whether you think they were evolved from common ancestor humans, or descendents of Adam and Eve humans, neither group started in Australia, yet ended up there. They got there somehow.

Answer 3

Boats.

Human migration has included boats. Humans (Homo sapiens) evolved from one ancestral group on the order of 100,000 years ago. Those humans migrated from the initial site (probably in Africa) to fill the rest of the world.

There was a land bridge about 80 million years ago. Modern placental mammals had not formed when Australia broke free from Pangea, but marsupials had.

You can trace the migration pattern of numerous other animals through Indonesia and New Guinea. There are waves of migrations that correspond to land bridges during the glacial periods of ice ages. The Torres Strait between New Guinea and Australia has sufficient intervening islands for migration by boat using line of sight as sole means of navigation, but being unswimmable.

Lastly, humans did not evolve from apes. They are apes. All modern apes and extinct ape lines evolved from an early proto-ape.

Answer 4

The Aborigines arrived in Australia around 40,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age. At that time, a great deal of water was frozen in the glaciers, producing a sea level about 300 feet lower than it is currently. Lands that are now submerged connected SE Asia with the islands of Indonesia. The Aborigines crossed into New Guinea and then crossed the then dry Torres Straits. Another land bridge to Tasmania existed then. Around 8000 years ago, the sea levels began to rise, flooding these lands, they are part of the continental shelves today.

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Answer 5

True there was no land bridge to Australia, but the oceans were at a lower levels than today. Since the sea level was so low there were many small islands that are no longer visible. People island hopped from Asia to Australia using primitive boats.

Answer 6

Pangea does not explain the arrival of homo sapiens to Australia. The introduction of humans there is an amazing story. Not only is there no land bridge, Australia is so far from south Asia that you would sail from South Asia to the point where you could no longer see the land you came from, and yet you STILL couldn't see Australia. To continue in those circumstances, unless you were lost, is madness.

The story is told very well and very thoroughly though in Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel. His position is essentialy an evolutionary one and the book covers a LOT more than how humans got to Australia. It's an amazing enough story how humans ever domesticated almonds. But we did. And he tells that too.

Hope you enjoy what you read of it.

Answer 7

The ancestry of Aboriginals extends beyond Australia's shores. They are the first humans to inhabit Australia, but they didn't originate here. I think they have a link with the Papua New Guineans, perhaps. there are so many islands to the north of Australia providing links. It is only to the East and West that Australia is so remote.

Answer 8

It is really not that complicated.

Men built a boat and went there. The Aborigines were fully capable of building boats.

It is the same way how the first men went to England, most of the Polynesian islands.

You ask Native Hawaiians and they will tell you that they have stories of their ancestors sailing to those lands.

Answer 9

the aborigenes probably got to australia by boat. it's not a long journey, so very primitive boats would do the job.

"The distance between Bali and Lombok is small, a matter of only about 35 kilometers."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_line

there are several species of mammals native to australia: most of them predictably enough, are ones that can fly or swim: bats and rodents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_bats

maybe you wouldn't go - maybe most people wouldn't go, but if the promise of new unoccupied lands is appealing to some, that's all it takes.

Answer 10

the micro organism in lots of cases loses a ingredient of it. If it replace into in a distinctive place or back to the place it in the previous replace into it would die. im sorry males yet macro hasn't been shown. ha ha ha...i comprehend that very humorous yet im not the single that would not use "in line with hazard" "in all hazard" "in all hazard" and words like that as quickly as im describing something i think of is real. in the previous you evolutionist and atheist supply me a thumbs down. Pease clarify how a woodpecker or the jaw with 2 instruments of teath improved? What do you are able to sa in regards to the bible having prophesies, around 3 hundred for in simple terms Jesus and approximately historic occasions? or Why did all yet one apostle die for their perception? (It cant be a lie becuase they have been with Jesus. I dont think of the terrorist from nine/eleven have been with muhamad while the perspective got here to him.)