My 10 year old niece stumped me with this one. If we evolved from apes...how come we still have apes?

Question

Please allow me to add that my niece and I are both Christians, as are her Mother and everyone else in our family that I can think of.

I'm not sure where she got this question from, but if you think about it, it IS asked from a CREATION way of thinking.

Why DO we have apes {or whatever primate you chose} if we evolved from them? Wouldn't they be extinct?

Answer 1

This is a very basic and elementary question regarding evolution, and it shows up here on YA about once every 3 days - usually as a rhetorical question which nobody actually wants an answer for, but rather simply wants to express their own view and have others agree with it or wants an oppurtunity to insult those who do not agree with it.  Assuming that you did not ask this as a rhetorical question, here is a very good, basic place to seek answers:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/librar...

You may be specifically interested by the last paragraph.

Answer 2

because we didn't god created us the fact that the animals we are supposed to have evolved from still exist gives credit to the theory of creation

Answer 3

Clearly, that's not how the theory of evolution works. If it did, there would only be one species of any organism on the whole planet, as each new species would require the old one to disappear. Your niece has not revealed the hidden flaw in the reasoning.

Evolution appears as a tree, where humans and apes are on smaller branches that come off of a thicker branch down towards the trunk. They shared a common ancestor in the past, and that ancestor had a population split. Some became pre-apes, and some became pre-humans. From an evolutionary standpoint, apes aren't any older or less evolved than humans are. They are like cousins on a family tree.

This is what evolution says. If you want to argue against it, I would urge you to read up a bit on it, so that you aren't arguing against nonexistent features of the theory, like this one.

Answer 4

You should read Darwin before dismissing the fact that is evolution.

Apes and humans exist, today, in conjunction because of several factors. By no means is evolution a single time-series of non-intersecting species. Think about apes and humans as two different twigs growing off the same branch of the tree of evolution.

Answer 5

Because we didn't.  God made us.

Answer 6

we didnt evolve from apes...apes and humans evolved from a lemur like ancestor...

Answer 7

People often refer to "the evolutionary tree".  This is because evolution is thought to produce multiple branches from a common line.  We are thought to have evolved from the same line as modern apes.

This chart might help you get an idea of how we are related to other primates & where our species splits off.

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/...

Answer 8

The same species can evolve differently due to their location, climate, food availability, predators, prey etc. For instance, say a group of giraffes was split in two, one group lived in an area with tall trees, one group with short trees. The giraffes living with taller trees would evolve with longer necks out of necessity to reach their food while the shorter ones would not.

If an animal lived in an area with a certain colored foliage they might develop different colors to adapt to their location and still be able to survive by camouflaging themselves. ex. If a group of brown and white moths lived in the same area, but all the trees they landed on were brown, the white ones would get eaten while the brown ones would not. With no white moths left in the area to pass down their pigment variation the area would be left with only brown moths. And if you went to a place with light-colored foliage, they might have only the light colored moths left.  Hope this helps.

Answer 9

Because apes has stopped their evolution. Or we haven't evolved from them.

Answer 10

Ask her "If you just bought clothes in the latest style, why are there still old style clothing in your closet?"

You’re also asking “If dogs are descended from wolves, why are there still wolves?

From the National Academy of Sciences:

"If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?

     Humans did not evolve from modern apes, but humans and modern apes shared a common ancestor, a species that no longer exists. Because we share a recent common ancestor with chimpanzees and gorillas, we have many anatomical, genetic, biochemical, and even behavioral similarities with these African great apes. We are less similar to the Asian apes--orangutans and gibbons--and even less similar to monkeys, because we share common ancestors with these groups in the more distant past.

     Evolution is a branching or splitting process in which populations split off from one another and gradually become different. As the two groups become isolated from each other, they stop sharing genes, and eventually genetic differences increase until members of the groups can no longer interbreed. At this point, they have become separate species. Through time, these two species might give rise to new species, and so on through millennia. "

http://www.nap.edu/html/creationism/appe...

From Straight Dope:

Why isn't this argument used against evolution? Well, it is--it's just used incorrectly. Let's start with a quote from the recently re-released publication, Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences (Second Edition).   In the section on "Human Evolution," the publication notes, "today there is no significant scientific doubt about the close evolutionary relationships among all primates, including humans."

Evolution doesn't work as a simple find-and-replace function. Have you ever seen the evolutionary "tree" diagrams in a science book?  Those trees show how different species branch off and go in different evolutionary directions. That doesn't necessarily mean everything else dies. As the National Academy of Sciences document notes, archaeological finds "reveal a well-branched tree, parts of which trace a general evolutionary sequence leading from ape-like forms to modern humans."

The NAS publication actually answers your question directly in its Appendix of Frequently Asked Questions. It says:

"Humans did not evolve from modern apes, but humans and modern apes shared a common ancestor, a species that no longer exists. Because we share a recent common ancestor with chimpanzees and gorillas, we have many anatomical, genetic, biochemical, and even behavioral similarities with these African great apes. We are less similar to the Asian apes orangutans and gibbons and even less similar to monkeys, because we share common ancestors with these groups in the more distant past.

"Evolution is a branching or splitting process in which populations split off from one another and gradually become different. As the two groups become isolated from each other, they stop sharing genes, and eventually genetic differences increase until members of the groups can no longer interbreed. At this point, they have become separate species. Through time, these two species might give rise to new species, and so on through millennia."

In other words, the "ape-like" animals that eventually gave rise to humans split up into several branches, all of which evolved in different directions. Some of those lines became become extinct; others survived. One of the surviving groups includes you and me (and in theory P.E. teachers, although one wonders). Other survivors include the various species of monkeys and apes we find today.

So, John, I've convinced you, right? Attaboy--always nice to have another ally in the fight against ignorance. Incidentally, you can find the NAS publication on the web at http://books.nap.edu/html/creationism/. Lots of good info in there!

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mevo...

Answer 11

HA HA!  Let's hear your big evolution theory now!  I have always had this in the back of my mind.  If evolutionists really believed in what they preach, then, yes......WHY ARE THERE STILL APES, FISH, AND THE LIKE?

Answer 12

According to the theory of evolution, we did not evolve from apes. Humans and other primates evolved from a common ancestor. The idea that humans evolved from apes is a common misconception. I've included some links below if you want to read more. Even if you don't agree, it never hurt to learn about a subject. If nothing else, having accurate information can strengthen your arguments. If you argue with correct information, you will not get bogged down by your adversary correcting you on your misinformation. Instead, everyone involved can focus on well-reasoned arguments and on  the validity or invalidity of the theory itself. Peace.