If humans and apes evolved from a single ancestor?

Question

if humans and apes evolved from a single ancestor, does that mean said ancestor has not become extinct mearly evolved, and if so, does that mean humans and apes are currently evolving into somthing else and what are anthropoids therfore evolving into?

Answer 1

we are always surviving, its called survival of the fittest check out charles darwin xx

Answer 2

Others have given good answers to this question, but just a response to J B above:

The theory of evolution does *not* state that an ape gave birth to a child which looked nothing like its parent. This does not happen, as we know. What you're referring to is a discredited theory known as saltationism, or the "hopeful monster" theory.

The real theory of evolution, in contrast, states that at no stage was a child born that differed from its parents more than you differ from yours. All the differences between us and our common ancestor with other apes are explained by gradual, imperceptible differences over thousands and thousands of generations.

If you don't understand this, consider the analogy of language. We know that French formed over hundreds of years from its ancestor, Latin. But at no stage was there a child who grew up speaking only French while its ancestors spoke only Latin - that would be ridiculous. The same is true of evolution.

Answer 3

Say there were just a few people in the world and one couple had three kids.  Say their names were Ozzy and Sharon.  Well, one kid is goth, one jock and one nerd.  They go off in different places with similiar kind and live isolated from each other.  The goth kid children become very pale people from wearing white makeup all the time.  The jock kid children develop strong muscles. The nerd kid children become highly advanced. If they never intermingle then they will become less and less alike. They will all be different than Ozzy and Sharon who were normal.....somewhat.

Answer 4

You are thinking progressive, linear evolution. Think " bush like " and " tree like " The ancestor of today's apes ( we are apes ) is extinct. Evolution has no direction, but is just the change in allele frequency over time in a population of organisms.

Branching speciation does not necessarily lead to extinction, though. The ceolocanth may be somebodies ancestor.

Answer 5

An organism will only evolve if it is necessary for survival. Since we have been able to manipulate our environment to suit our needs there is no need for us to change. We no longer have to adapt; we force everything else to. We will not evolve anymore until it is necessary.

Answer 6

Evolutionists will tell you that this ancestor, whatever the  h*ll he looked like has now become extinct, but just before he finally died out he produced a human being who looked absolutely nothing like it's father. It reminds me somewhat of another old story about an immaculate conception. The only difference is, there was a lady involved in the latter, which seems to me to be more reliable in it's content. Why do people swallow all this codswallop ?

Answer 7

"if humans and apes evolved from a single ancestor, does that mean said ancestor has not become extinct mearly evolved, "

A species can die out leaving descendants. In the case of the ancestor to humans and apes one possibility:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn...

did die out but humans and apes have survived.There are a number of earlier ancestor to we homo spaiens sapiens that have gone extinct

" does that mean humans and apes are currently evolving into somthing else"



Certain species, as example the Coelacanth

http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/fishfa... haven't changed in millions of years. The critters have found a stable niche and natural selection hasn't affected them to any great degree. It's when part of a species is isolated that evolution enters a "hothouse" phase and change is rapid. This is what is believed to have happened along the Rift Valley in Africa that resulted in human advancement.

"and what are anthropoids therfore evolving into?"

Nobody knows. Given the huge number of humans on the planet, evolution is still happening. However, evolution is very random. There's not a goal ie  "Let's develop ESP" that's being worked towards. Rather, those individuals that tend to do better at surviving tend to pass their characteristics on to the next generation. Remember evolution is working on a time line of millions of years. Evolving to have better manual deterity to play video games isn't evolution.

Answer 8

That's certainly one way of thinking about it. But more likely the common ancestor simply branched out into different niches and one of those niches became simians and other branches became other branches of the hominid races. In this way it's like a tree or river with many tributaries. Eventually most of the other branches of the tree became thinner in terms of population and (probably with the Toba event) many various species of hominids became extinct.

However without having become directly extinct, we do know that humanity started spreading over the earth - in relatively sparse populations during the last 150 thousand years or so, and most widely dispersed, at about 85000 and again at about 45000 years ago.

HOWEVER, it's very important to note that human populations and the populations of other hominids were limited by lifestyle, to a very large degree.

It wasn't really until about 45,000 years ago when we - as the best toolmaking species developed higher order language and abstraction skills.

With that in hand, within 45,000 years started changing our lifestyles to be more purposefully nomadic , and partially sedentary and organized around hunting  more deliberately.

The final blow - to the other hominid species came about when our species developed some basic forms of agriculture. While it is unknown when exactly purposeful plant and animal domestication took place, there are some tantalizing clues.

1. We have domesticated nearly every animal which was able to BE domesticated, by temperament or desirable characteristics.

2. We started and certainly failed to domesticate certain crops, but it's likely that some of our semi-nomadic villages settled in areas where fields of wheat or barley or some fruit plants were growing naturally, and within a relatively short time frame, you likely had accidental if not purposeful domestication of plants.

There are two seminal works on the subject which I think most people would find illuminating.

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journe... - these guys put together a pretty good presentation which broadly covers our current understanding of the origin of our species.

http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/ - Guns, Germs and Steel, provides a clear and pretty accessible reading of how - in broad terms, various "technologies" spread and why Eurasians rather than other families of mankind are so widespread.

Answer 9

I agree w/ livi that we are forcing nature and other organisms to adapt, while refusing to adapt ourselves. One hope of mine is that technology may enable us to reach higher states of consciousness, causing a jump in evolution. Enabling humans to think more progressively as we build a perfect utopia. yeah right, I know.