If Darwin's theory is true, why we don't see that apes are being changed to men?

Question

Darwin says in his 'Theory of Evolution' that apes are the forefathers of men. If so we should see(anywhere in the world)apes in the midway between ape and man,ie ,ape-like man or man-like ape.But we dont see such phenominon.Doesn't this interpret that Darwin's theory is untrue?

Answer 1

This change started with a small group or family (Adam&Eve)

who were at the right place at the right time (Garden of Eden)

It happened because the females picked a few good males over the others (Eve choosing to eat the fruit). We left the animal kingdom (kicked out of Eden).  We started killing for pleasure (Cain & Abel) unlike animals.  It makes sense to me.  Where's the problem.  Thanks.

Answer 2

Darwin's theory says that humans and apes descended from a common ancestor, not that humans descended from apes.  They went down one evolutionary path, we went down another.  The divergence occured at a single point in time, it doesn't occur continuously.

Answer 3

Evolution doesn't happen overnight. It takes thousands of years.

Answer 4

It is obvious that some men and women what to prove Darwin right. They have choosen a path congurent to that of the ape. As you mentioned, there forefathers, not to be confused with forefathers of America. Obviously, not from the ape tree. If one chooses to be something and works hard enough at it, usually they will become just that. Of course, any intelligent ape can made an argument for anything. Others will ban together with strengh in numbers and the argument will win even if it has zero logic. History is a great teacher of this. The only way Darwin's Theory can be true is if a Supreme Creator is not behind all this. If that is true, every life on earth is happening at random. Even an ape knows that's not true when they shepard a bannana out of a tree in the jungle.

Answer 5

Darwin's "The Origin of Species" introduced the theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. Being as it is a generational process it takes a significant amount of time to see the effects of this. We are able to observe evolution much more easily in species with significantly shorter life spans (such as fruit flies). Darwin wasn't arguing that we came from monkeys, he was simply vocalizing an idea (that was being discussed by various leaders in the scientific community at the time) regarding how creatures are able to adapt and survive in their environments. There is much more to the theory of evolution than "man coming from apes," which wasn't even a main point to Darwin's work at all.

Answer 6

First, apes & humans have a common ancestor & second, genetic science has proven the "theory of evolution" to be fact.  DNA is a complicated code that we are slowly decoding.  Imagine a huge room filled with switches, some that produce a result when turned on,  others that do nothing, and some enable or disable other switches... now start flipping these switches to figure out what they do. That is DNA & RNA.

Now assume you have the horrible little bugs crawling everywhere that are constantly rewiring these switches (the virus) and inserting their own switches here & there (so they can make their own little bugs.)  That is evolution & the virus is responsible for at least 3% of human DNA.  

Within the next 2 decades we will be in a position to "reengineer" many of the world's species by simply using the right virus to restructure the genes of said species. Yes, all the World's species are evolving as we speak... however unless the human lifetime is extended by millions of years, it won't be readily visable.

Edit:

I am wondering how long it will be before someone, somewhere, decides to cut human Chromosome #2 or fuse the Chimps chromosomes to attempt to produce a hybrid of the 2 species?  Our Chromosome #2 is so close to a fusion of 2 chimp Chromosomes that it is obvious we have a common ancestor.

Answer 7

I am afraid that you misspeak a primary discovery in Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species,' sir. It is not from modern apes that humankind evolved, but, together with primitive apes, from a common ape-like ancestor over millions of years, we humans followed one path, the modern apes another. This question, or ones similar, are asked here and in the Religion & Spirituality section dozens of times every week. Find answers here and also there, and of course in works that are easily downloaded on the Internet. By now, over more than 125 years since Darwin's wrote the book, it speaks not of Darwin's 'scientific theory' but of the person who pulls this tired and tiresome question out of the air. I apologize if I appear to be harsh, I do not mean to.

Answer 8

uhh...no.  humans only became humans after millions of years of evolution.  not all apes have come as far as us yet, and may not develop into intelligent species at all.  and if they develop into more intelligent beings, it will be after a long time.

Answer 9

No it doesn't disprove it. What we may have here, is what scientists call a founder's effect. Which is when a certain population of primates separated from an original population in order to better suit themselves to their new environment.

Answer 10

Why don't we see apes being changed into men and women? Because you've not had a decent science class in your life, apparently.

Answer 11

Perhaps for now it wouldn't benefit apes to change into man because the ones that it did benefit, millions of years ago, already spawned off into a whole new species - man.  Besides, even if there were changes they would be so slight no one would really notice it now. Evolution takes place over millions, maybe billions, of years.

Answer 12

Modern apes will very likely evolve into something different from what they are today.  They have to have some sort of selection pressure that would direct their development in a particular direction.  It is highly unlikely that they could occupy any of mans niche which is a tool using hunter gatherer generalist.  Humans would not allow the intrusion of another animal into our niche.  We very likely killed all the other close relatives that were even close to us.   All that apes could do without human intervention is occupy a niche that doesn't threaten a much more dominant and unforgiving species.

Answer 13

BIGFOOT!

Answer 14

According to darwins theory of evolution, he stated that man evolved from apes. He based his statements from his findings because he discoverd that man and apes are chracteristically the same. In the form of face, mouth and the way they stand erect. Based on sciences man evolved from apes but in the spiritual learnings, man came from dust and will go back to dust.

Answer 15

No.  Because we DO see this in the fossil record and that means it's already taken place.   That species changed over a long period of time and became what we are now.   The species of primates that share our world did not change in the same ways and thus aren't of the same lineage.   Rest assured OUR species is still changing slowly and so are all other creatures.  Some will die out and become a part of the fossil record and others will emerge.  You assume that evolution takes place over the course of a few centuries of recorded history, but in fact, it takes place over much longer periods of time.

Answer 16

To answer your question we must first address what evolution is. Evolution is conditional on variability within a population, and how this variation is selected for within the environment via reproductive success. Fortunately for humans we are the most generalized mammal on the planet and as of such have found a nearly universal success throughout most of the environments that we encounter. That said it is difficult to imagine a figurative future environment that would be different enough to allow natural selection to act upon the effected population for long enough to create any kind of significant morphological change in our species. This is why we "appear to not be evolving", but this is far from the truth.  We are still evolving, although our evolution today is primarily microevolution, not macroevolution.  This is because our attempts to control our environments and our invasive use of medicine has put a damper on our human biology's expression of macroevolutionary factors.

As for our closest relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos), they too 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 primates. Within the Great Apes our closest relatives are said to be the Chimpanzees or the Bonobos. This is because 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. Considering the appropriate environment that cause our bipedalism, however, is key to understanding what selective pressures could cause the evolutionary results that you are asking about. 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 be existing 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. If evolution was not occurring in primates still then we would not be able to tell these two species apart, yet the distinctions are too numerous to ignore.

More recently primates of all types became afflicted with SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus). Originally SIV would have acted much like HIV acts within the humans that it afflicts, but in the modern primate species SIV is hardly even noticeable. Evolution has adapted to the severity of such a virus and in modern primates their are many carriers of this virus who carry it completely through their reproductive lifespan. This is a great example of primate microevolution, and much like the human biology is constantly warring with bacteria and viruses on the micro level, the same is occurring in all primates.

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. This leads us to your question "why we don't see that apes are being changed to men?" To address this we must ask what environmental conditions allowed for this adaptation?

The earliest hypothesis put forth to explain this was the savanna hypothesis, which became discredited when the archaeological record of hominids showed sites previous to the time of savannas being the primary landscape feature in Africa, namely sites that preceded 3 mya. Archaeology at this point has even unearthed a few hominid sites that are proposing that early hominids were present even as far back as 6 mya, and if this is the case then the savanna is truly an impossible environment to have allowed our evolution. It was Raymond Dart who first proposed the savanna hypothesis and he did so because he had discovered a significan number of hominids that had lived in South Africa. The archaeological evidence for his site proposed a savanna environment. Being one of the first hominid sites to be found, he was free to conjecture whatever ideas he saw fit from his evidence and hence the birth of the savanna hypothesis. Over the last 25 years, as the savanna hypothesis has been increasingly discredited because of the discovery of sites that date back to earlier times that did not have a savanna environment.

With this fact, contemporary anthropology has more and more began to describe our evolutionionary environment as being that of a mixed hypothesis, which is a primarily arboreal environment with savanna patches between forests. As some Chimpanzee groups live in this "mixed" environment, whereas Bonobos live in a swampy/arboreal environment and display much more incidences of bipedalism, it is my humble opinion that the mixed hypothesis is also flawed in its reasoning, yet that is where anthropology stands on the subject. Other contending hypothesis for the origins of man are:

The ice age hypothesis, which states that Northern Hemisphere ice ages made the African environment drier suddenly, thus forcing the rapic evolution of our species.

The arboreal hypothesis, which states that our constant tree climbing allowed for the adoption of a more upright posture. There are a lot of arboreal monkeys/apes however which are by no means showing the same tendancy so I don't buy this one.

The hypothesis of neotony, which simply states that some undefined rapid environmental change pushed our ancestor towards more generalized neonatal characteristics (baby characteristics) in order to expand our biological toolkit for adaptation.

And my personal favourite, the aquatic hypothesis, which does NOT propose that our hominid ancestors swam in the open ocean as many of it's opponents will have you beleive. In fact their is a lot of geological evidence that shows that the great rift valley flooded around 10-8 million years ago and that this would have resulted in an island remaining in Eretria. The aquatic ape hypothesis postulates that the monkeys that were in this area were forced together onto this Island as the water rose during this period of flooding and as the population became too dense for the remaining terrestrial resources to support this population of monkeys, they began to experiment with new food sources. Over the years one food source that became more and more abundant were the shellfish in the adjacent tidal areas and it was these resources which these monkeys began to exploit (like the crab eating macaques do in South East Asia). As this environment was exploited more and more as a food source, the most successful monkeys were the ones that had advantages (ever so slightly) towards holding their bodies erect as they searched for crabs or oysters (excellent protein source for brain development) in the tidal regions and over many generations (about 1 million years of isolation) bipedalism, a reduced size of our hair, the ability to control our breath, increased fatty tissue, a diving reflex and a whole host of other characteristics came about in these now early hominids. Similiar adaptations took place in a whole bunch of other fully aquatic mammal species like seals, dolphins and whales. The difference with hominids, however, was that the waters receeded after we had only made a partial adaptation towards aquaticism, and as of such they were suddenly left with a new set of characteristics that could be applied within the terrestrial environment where these hominids now found themselves. If these characteristics were not beneficcial then hominids would have gone extinct then and there, but as history has proven, this little, naked hominid stood the test of time and was able to apply his new biological toolkit to adapting to new environments throughout the globe.

The Aquatic hypothesis is the only opposing hypothesis that has gone to great lengths at giving details concerning our biological adaptations and I find that it successfully competes and is even superior to the ideas currently being put fourth by the mixed hypothesis. I do not deny that both the ice-age and neotony hypothesis, respectively, could have contributed within the scope of either the mixed or aquatic hypothesis as mechanisms that may have assisted, or hastened our evolution. It is the aquatic hypothesis hypothesis, however, that I believe will eventually be given "theory" status once enough empiracle proof is discovered.

If a different ape species was to follow our evolutionary adaptation then it to would have to be isolated into the same environment that forced our change be it mixed (which chimpanzees already occupy) or aquatic. I won't say neonatal or ice-age because neonatal is a reaction to environmental change and ice-age is an instigator of environmental change. Given this isolation an adequate pressure could then be put upon their morphological expression to force such a change in the evolution of the isolated ape/primate species. Until such an occurance, these primate species are excellently adapted to the environments that they occupy and no leap to a permanent state of bipedalism should be expected.

Answer 17

We evolved from a ape-like creature NOT APES! basically this is why you don't see missing links.

Answer 18

Evolution is not made over night it will take time which is a slow and gradual process. We can't see that evolution but from fossil evidence that will indicate very frequently. Ape like man or man like ape there is no question about that it is the question of ape is the evolution of man emerge.

It is true and proved by various panatologist, archologist adn anthropologist