Evolution believers? If humankind evolved from apes, why apes didn't continue evolving?

Question

I mean if evolution is a process of time why can't we find somebody that is in the middle of the process? Like a man that looks like an ape. Because that's the thing that I don't understand.

Answer 1

They do, only more not near so much as we have from Homo Erectus. Yes I do know I probly speeled that wrong.  If you want to reseach our ansectors the Smithsonian Website has a great section on them.

Answer 2

Simple, humans didn't evolve from apes. Besides, to say so would be to call yourself an ape. ARE you an ape?

Answer 3

Apes have continued to evolve, as have worms, and all forms of living things, even human beings.  Evolution is a theory and the theory is also evolving but the science of it seems indisputable.

Answer 4

Because when something has evolved to a point that it can live efficiently in it's surroundings, the need to continue evolving ceases. Human beings force the things around them to be efficient, that's why we don't evolve any more. Case in point: kleenex with aloe so your nose doesn't get sore. In a case of necessary evolution, your nose gets tougher so the kleenex doesn't irritate it. Get it?

Answer 5

You are getting confused,because whilst you recognise that Evolution is a process, you still have a beginning, a middle and an end in your question and in your thinking - Apes the beginning, Man the end. You're looking for the middle.

The process of evolution means there is no beginning, middle and end (well, ok, there was a beginning of Life, but that's all). The word process describes that life is always moving, always changing. A previous respondant answered much regarding how we split, so I don't have to here.

Just know that Life is not as neatly organised as you might see in a textbook. It was not that one day, australopithecus gave birth to Homo Habilis, who in turn one day gave birth to Homo Erectus, who gave birth to Homo Sapiens. There were a million different mutations in between from one generation to the next over a 3 million-year timespan, so that eventually one individual was different enough from his age-old ancestors to classify him as a different species.

Life is a process continually changing. There is no final form as a creationist might believe. And now we as humans too are changing and will be (if we are still around) very different in 100,000 years than we are now.

Answer 6

Stop trying to disprove evolution because it is the process by which species are either removed or continue to thrive.  Did humans evolve from apes?  You really shouldn't care because the theory can stand alongside the Bible.  God created the heavens and the earth.  The creation story is a parable not an explanation.  God is God.  All of man's explanations stand as testimony to God's greatness.  We all must rise to the challenge and reach out for what God gives us and relish when he takes it away.  Think you are immune?

Answer 7

Because some of you apes are content to be apes.

Answer 8

The first concept to understand in this discussion is that humans did not evolve from contemporary apes or monkeys. Our evolutionary precursor was what is called a "common ancestor" who was ape but not recognizable as a modern ape. The next step in answering your question is to understand what evolution is. Evolution is conditional on variability within a population, and how this variation is selected for within the environment via reproductive success. This is the primary aspect of evolution important to this discussion.

Now, not only are modern Apes NOT our common ancestor, but they have also followed their own separate evolutionary paths since our divergence from our common ancestor. Our closest relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) have continued to evolve during their 6-7 million years of separate evolution to their distinct environments. Of course seeing as their generational spacing is large, like it is with humans, this evolution is more difficult to see within a small time frame as well. Evolution, however, is based primarily on reproductive success whereby the most fit individuals within given environments will produce the most offspring and the characteristics which provided that success will spread amongst the group. Let me give you some examples of evolution occurring within Chimpanzees and Bonobos. These two primate species diverged from our common ancestor around 6-7 mya and then consequently split from their shared common ancestor 2-2.5 mya. In this time an array of distinct differences have evolved that make these two species very distinguishable from one another and these differences are clearly from environmental pressures. The bonobos, for instance practice bipedalism much more frequently then Chimpanzees and also have a drastically different means of conflict resolution, where as chimpanzees are much more quadrepedal, aggressive and competitive. So why have these characteristics sprung up in the mere 2my since these two groups were isolated from each other because of the changing flow of a river which geographically split their common ancestor into two groups? Well, the bonobos were restricted into a more swamp like/arboreal environment, which was confined in space, where as the chimpanzees were left in a savanna/arboreal mixed environment, which was expansive. The swampy aspect of the bonobo habitat forced them to practice bipedalism frequently because their terrain was not fully traversable without adapting to this strategy periodically. Those individuals who were better adapted became better foragers in providing access to resources and removing these same food resources from swampy areas and this characteristic has been selected for over generations. Chimpanzees meanwhile have found great success in being primarily quadrapedal because the mixed arboreal savanna environment has no selective advantage towards being bipedal much to the chagrin of contemporary anthropology. I wish that they could look at the primates that have adapted more bipedalism (proboscis for traversing mangrove forests, crab eating macaques when carrying their shellfish to shore, Japanese macaques when bathing in the hot springs) before jumping to their foolish "mixed" hypothesis conclusion. The other differential traits between bonobos and chimpanzees that are very apparent are in how they deal with conflict resolution. Bonobos, who live in a confined environment, rarely result in full out conflict. They have a culture of threat displays and sexual resolution techniques that are fully employed before conflict arises. This includes running bipedaly while dragging sticks, to p***s fencing, to female genital genital rubbing. They appear to be bi-sexual at first, but upon further observation it becomes obvious that these rituals are all about relieving stress and combativeness in a controlled manner and they are not actually s*x crazy primates as some have portrayed them. Quite honestly, because of their confined space this group of primates can not afford to fight aggressively because conflicts would be too frequent and too costly to the group, so other means of conflict resolution have formed to adapt to this confined environment. Chimpanzees, alternatively, do not have this confined environment and are an ultra competitive group of primates who tend to use physical dominance to acquire a higher ranking thus hopefully attaining more reproductive opportunities. Chimpanzees have also been observed to conduct warfare and will murder males from neighbouring groups and they have clearly defined territories. If bonobos were to live like this they would no longer exist today because their troops show much more overlap between one another and conflicts and murders would have become far to commonplace if they lived like chimpanzees. Research at Yerkes primate research center has utilized interactive and educational tools to determine the cognitive abilities of both of these primate species and as would be expected and corroborates what field observations would predict, bonobos are much better communicators, where as chimpanzees are much better tool makers. So, evolution has continued in our closest relatives since our divergence with them yet they have not become much more like us over that period.

As you can see all primates, including humans, are in a constant state of evolution. If an environment on a macro scale is no longer very influential like is seen with humans especially, then there is little reason for any noticeable phenotypic expression that might cause noticeable morphological changes. Undoubtedly, however, the environment on a micro scale is much more active due to the extremely short generational cycle of micro organisms and, as-of-such, this rapidly changing micro-environment is constantly being adapted to and evolution at this level is very apparent within all primates.

Clearly evolution has not stopped in any primate species, human or other. But considering that evolution is from a "common ancestor" and not from any contemporary species then there is a questions that is 100% equivalent to yours which may put yours into perspective.

If apes (I'll say Chimpanzees to be more precise) evolved from Humans, then why didn't humans continue evolving?

After all both of these species are equidistant from our common ancestor so the coin may be flipped. Evolution is NOT progressive, simply adaptive and Chimpanzees are just as well adapted to their environment as humans are at modifying our own environments instead of adapting to them.

I hope that this clarifies your question for you!

Now I always like to read Ed's answers as he typically likes to focus more on the genetic, where as I prefer to focus on the archaeological evidence, comparative osteology of these archaeological remains and also actualistic studies and comparisons with the modern landscape and modern primate groups. Yet, Ed made a mistake this time in attributing Homo neanderthalensis as the most recent Homo to having a common ancestor with Homo sapiens. Nothing wrong with his conclusions regarding Neanderthal, but seeing as Homo sapiens evolved from African Archaic Homo sapiens some 150,000 - 200,000 years ago, it was this Archaic split that represents are most recent common ancestor. There are even controversial sites like the Omo site in Ethiopia that has a possible Homo sapiens skull that was found close to an Archaic Homo sapiens that was found in situ at that 130,000 year ago stratigraphy. Obviously African Archaic Homo sapiens lived well beyond this "split" in evolution and as of such it is this archaeological group that shares our most recent common ancestor. This discrepancy between ed and I may actually stem from his concentration on DNA because there have been no sites in Africa that have been suitable for the preservation of African Archaic Homo sapiens DNA, where as due to the colder climate in Europe many Neanderthal DNA samples have been discovered. As-of-such, according to the DNA evidence, Neanderthal would be the most recent "known" divergence where as the archaeological evidence paints a much broader picture due to not being limited to the preservation conditions of DNA only.

Concerning your "middle of the process" question on the fossil remains, in fact, there is also this relatively recent find from Ethiopia: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/relea... that claims to be the earliest site of anatomically modern Homo sapiens.  It may be, but this finding is also in some controversy due to its archaic Homo sapiens characteristics, despite being primarily "modern" in appearance.  The truth of the matter is that the fossil record is fraught with these "blended" finds, but because the scientific community demands that they are classified into one group or another the blurry lines of evolution are made more rigid, while in all truth the "missing links" litter up the archaeological record with apparently "blended" or "hybrid" remains popping up all over the place, most notably within the specimens of Homo erectus which due to their spread acquired a lot of different variance in their osteology, some groups of which have been attributed with separate paths of "speciation" because these descendants seemingly diverged too far from the "normal" range which is considered to represent Homo erectus.

Answer 9

Apes did continue evolving. We did not evovle from any modern ape species, but from a common ancestor we share with apes.

Answer 10

That's like asking If I ate toast this morning, why is there still bread?

If you are looking for the so called missing link, there are many many of them.

look at a fossil called "little boy" this is a child who died at about four years of age around 50,000 years ago. His upper body is that of a modern human but his hips are hinged like a neanderthal.

In the animal world look at archeopteryx an animal that is part dinosaur and part bird.

Lots and lots of examples. It is always better to have ones mind opened by wonder than closed by belief.

Answer 11

Well, modern apes have evolved a lot to where they are.  Some have actually evolved more from our common ancestor.  And there are plenty of transitional fossils between us and our common ancestor.

Answer 12

Now you are using your common sense!

Evolution is not correct for the very reason you have stated, there are no apes presently evolving into humans anywhere to be found.

From 666 The Mark of America Seat of the Beast



"Mysteries, theories, speculations, vain imaginations, perceptions, opinions, and beliefs are invented by those who do not know how, why, and when life came into existence. p232

Science is a type of religion, just as religion is a type of science, wherein the mystery of life remains a mystery to those who don't understand it, but pretend to."

p233

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Answer 13

Apes did continue to evolve & like humans they are evolving as I write this.  The Bonobo & Chimp have a recent ancestor, but the Chimp & HomoSapien have a distant ancestor. Our closest cousin would be the Neanderthal as due to DNA tests we are only separated from a common ancestor by ~ 450,000 yrs. The common ancestor to Chimp & Sapien is 5 to 7 million yrs in the past. Unlike the study of fossiles & drawing conclusions based upon very sketchy evidence, Biology is a very exacting science & offers indisputable evidence to support the "fact" of evolution.  The complete sequencing of the Neanderthal genome is targeted for 2009.

     We do not know everything about gravity, but it would be very foolish to assume it didn't exist, simply because some aspects of gravity are undefined.

I enjoy reading berickf's posts & must agree that his link to the Archaic Homo Sapien is interesting, but this would have been an ancestor to Homo Sapien Sapien rather than another branch of hominoid (cousin).  It is of course possible that the archaic sapien branched then died out as sapien sapien became dominate, but I'd suspect they continued to interbreed until the archaic line disappeared into the gene pool.  While the out of Africa theory is genetically indisputable, I have a suspicion that one other archaic(cousin) did contribute some small number of genes to the Sapien gene pool.  Unfortunatly we will have to wait until further DNA evidence surfaces to resolve this question.

However, I am an engineer & not a biologist or anthropologist or archeologist.  Argueing with another discipline is always dangerous.

Answer 14

Okay, modern apes weren't our ancestors.  We shared an ancestor with them.  All of those species in between us and that split have gone extinct for various reasons, which is why you don't see any missing link types wandering around today.

Modern apes have evolved just as much, if not more, than we have.  We are not the end result of evolution; we're just a link in the chain.  Evolutionarily speaking, the only difference between us and carrots is that we talk a lot.  So modern apes are quite well-evolved species that fit their environment beautifully.  The reason they didn't become more like humans is that we lived in two different areas.  We evolved on the savannah, while gorillas and chimps stayed in the forests.  Therefore, we were exposed to different environmental pressures that pushed us in different directions.  Not, mind you, that different, as we share over 97% of our DNA with chimps.  Different enough, though, that it's only been lately that we've been out-competing them in their habitat and driving them to extinction.

At any rate, we're talking about huge amounts of time here.  You're never going to see a chimp give birth to a demi-human.  It's been somewhere around 6 million years since we split from them.  That's how long it took for two groups of whatever species that ancestor was to become humans and chimps.