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so science says we evolved from monkeys and apes. why do we still have them then?the only thing i can think of is we evolved from a different evolutionary chain of monkeys and apes. can anyone help me?am i correct or am i wrong?

2007-11-07 16:19:47 · 10 answers · asked by Carl 2 in Social Science Anthropology

10 answers

Evolve doesn't mean "to replace". It's more like, "In addition to"...

The word "evolve" comes from the Latin, 'to roll out, or unfold', so the flow of evolution, is like toothpaste coming out of the tube. It gets pretty messy if you try to put it back in!!

The only reasons that we can't tell you the exact stages of this process definitively, is...

1) There was no videotape back then, however the forensic, fossil evidence thus far collected, would hold up in a court of law, proving this case beyond any reasonable doubt!

2) Animals, and especially Homonids, in Sub-Sahara Africa did not go out of their way to become fossilized for future archeologists to be able to make precise conclusions, as it's a rather unpleasant experience to die in a mudslide, or a lava flow, just to provide specific evidence for future generation's scientific data...

1/2 million years could pass before someone got fossilized under just the right conditions, and then someone else, one million years later, would have to come along, like a beachcomber, and then find that fossil of them...
Think of these needle-in-a-haystack, odds!!!

2007-11-07 17:53:05 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2 1

The common ancestor of man and ape bred well in it's time period and spread throughout several areas and environments in north/central Africa and southern Asia. These groups became separated and isolated form each other, never interbreeding beyond certain geographical or environmental boundaries. An accumulation of tiny mutations caused tiny differences and natural selection increased the breeding rate of animals with mutations most suited to the environment (while decreasing the breeding rate of those less suited). Thousands of tiny changes over millions of years in several isolated populations caused these populations to be genetically different from eachother, meaning they're each a distinct species. Gorillas adapted to their environment through superior strength, gibbons great agility and humans a frontal lobe in the brain that grants them proactive adaptive abilities (thinking inventing) and superior social structure (society, communication).

Most humans would starve or get eaten in a few days if left naked in the jungles of Borneo, but orangutans spend their entire lives there. They've evolved into their environment very well over the past million years.

Evolution is not a chain, it's more like a tree. Some brances and parts are hard and dead (extinctions) some are still green and budding, possibly even making new forks and branches. Chimps are just a few twigs over while portabello mushrooms are on an entirely different limb that split form ours 2 or 3 billion years back.

2007-11-08 07:30:12 · answer #2 · answered by sgtcosgrove 7 · 2 1

6. If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?

This surprisingly common argument reflects several levels of ignorance about evolution. The first mistake is that evolution does not teach that humans descended from monkeys; it states that both have a common ancestor.

The deeper error is that this objection is tantamount to asking, "If children descended from adults, why are there still adults?" New species evolve by splintering off from established ones, when populations of organisms become isolated from the main branch of their family and acquire sufficient differences to remain forever distinct. The parent species may survive indefinitely thereafter, or it may become extinct

2007-11-09 17:52:11 · answer #3 · answered by Mike Y 1 · 2 0

Look at the porcelain plates and teapots used in China 3000 years ago, or the water pipes used in Rome 2000 years ago, or the dog collars used in England 1000 years ago or the wine glasses crafted in Venice 500 years ago- you'll notice that they all look pretty much identical to the porcelain plates/teapots/water pipes/dog collars/wine glasses we use today even though we now have much better technology and a much different world.
But these things did not need to change any more than they had over the years. There was no real way to improve on them, so the design pretty much stays the same. Humans are far from perfect physically, but nothing has required them to change radically.
Unlike [other] apes we have the power to adapt ourselves to our environment and our environments to ourselves. That is why you find humans living on the plains of Africa and the mountains of Switzerland and in the Arctic Circle and in hot humid rain forests and in 140 degree sandy deserts- there are humans in places where not even cockroaches can live. We haven't needed to change or be changed all that much in the past 100,000 years, because the point of evolution is not perfection but survival and we can survive anywhere.

We are apes who somehow- and there are a million theories but it's still and probably will always be a mystery- lost most of our body hair, gained the ability to walk erect, ate foods that "grew our brains", gained enormous dexterity in our hands, learned to swim, etc., and consequently we reached a point where we were able to live in an incredible variety of locations.
There have been superficial changes. That's what race is- in Europe where it was cold and overcast the skins of the descendants of Africans who ventured north lightened over the years, while in Asia where the winds blew hard it was beneficial for the folds we all have on our eyelids to become wider (the slanted Asian eye), and in parts of southern Africa you'll find tribes that are extremely tall in places where it's hot and humid and people who are shorter and stockier in places where the climate is more temperate all because these were the people who adapted best to their environment and had more descendants. However, if a Bedouin from the sandiest hottest desert in Arabia were to fall in love with an Eskimo from the coldest most frozen wasteland of the Yukon, and the two of them decided to live in downtown London, they could do it and they could have kids because we're still the same species (and the kids would have English accents and know their way around the streets of London even if their parents never learned because, once again, we adapt to any environment we can eat in and breathe in). Race is such a divider in social factors that it's sometimes hard to remember that the amount of DNA that separates a 7 foot tall black African Watusi warrior from a 5 foot tall Japanese businessman is less than 1% of 1% of our genes.

Apes and monkeys can't adapt like this. If mountain gorillas were removed to a humid rain forest just a few hundred miles away, they would all die. An orangutan could not live on a cold mountain top and a monkey could not live in a desert unless it had a keeper to feed it. However, they're perfectly adapted to the environments they do live in (with the exception of the things humans have done to their habitats and poaching killing them off).

2007-11-08 02:26:43 · answer #4 · answered by Jonathan D 5 · 3 1

In the millions of years that human ancestors have evolved, so have ape and monkey species, ok? ALL species have evolved in millions of years. Apes and humans have a common ancestor. Then, the species diverged. One the one side, homo sapiens eventually evolved. On the other, modern apes evolved.

I see this question over and over. It's the same answer every time.

2007-11-08 00:55:56 · answer #5 · answered by Heather 4 · 2 2

We branched off basically. We are considered primates, just like the great apes. They have also evolved in the last million years, as has everything else.

2007-11-09 00:20:51 · answer #6 · answered by supernatural_luver 4 · 0 0

Is it right for you to be getting the answers to your homework on a web site and not doing the basic learning process for yourself?

Read! It will benefit you.

2007-11-08 16:25:31 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1 1

Apes and you are correct.

2007-11-09 06:28:54 · answer #8 · answered by Heart of man 6 · 0 0

Hi Carl. I cant answer your question because I cant understand what it is you are asking. You must get help with your grammar and your spelling. How do you expect anyone to understand what you are asking if they cannot read the question.

2007-11-08 05:42:51 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1 2

Because your scientists are wrong. They will self destruct if they have to admit that their theory is impractical.

You still like the question because you still want to ask it and still want to believe your scientists.

Did monkey's come from dinosaurs?

Enjoy your day, sir.

2007-11-08 16:05:27 · answer #10 · answered by littleblanket 4 · 0 7

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