An.......evolving question?

Question

If humans evolved from monkeys, why do they still exist?

If humans evolved from monkeys, where did monkeys evolve from, and so on and so on and so on?

Answer 1

The above answerer has every right to judge your ill posed question any way she wants.

Why are you people still asking questions that were answered well over a hundred years ago.

Answer 2

Have patience, this question appears about once every two weeks. People get tired or seeing it.

The way you phrase the question means you’re also asking “If dogs are descended from wolves, why are there still wolves? The same question but more illustrative: "If I go to the store and buy the latest fashions, why are there still old fashions in my closet"

Remember Apes and humans have a common ancestor. Each has been on separate evolutionary paths for 8 million years. That also explains why apes won't become human. They'd have to devolve 8 million years, then follow the path we too.

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 and Cecil's answer to the same question:

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 3

Even many of the "experts" don't understand this subject so don't feel alone.  It is really simple actually but so many biology and anthropology majors get it wrong, it is no wonder it is confusing to people who haven't studied the subject.  If you go back maybe 30 million years ago, just estimating, when we shared an ancestor with the closest monkey, the species were totally different but there were still several species of what would properly be called monkeys.  They aren't the same as monkeys today but they were still monkeys.  Monkeys that didn't grow larger never needed to evolve traits that apes did because they never changed their lifestyle or niche significantly.  One of those species of monkeys became larger just like some monkeys today are larger than others.  It developed into apes over millions of years.  Then it spit into several species of apes and one of those apes eventually evolved into us.  Other species of apes evolved into other apes and most of them went extinct.

Answer 4

No, this question hasn't evolved at all from any of the 50 billion other times it's been asked.

Why wouldn't monkey still exist? (Actually we didn't evolve from monkeys, that's only one of the many misunderstandings of evolution you, and every ohter person who asks this same stupid question 90 times a day have.)

There's no reason to suppose that, when one species evolves, it's parent species vanishes. In fact, that would just be nutty.

We are apes, who evolved from earlier apes. They evolved from earlier primates, who evolvd from earlier mammals, who evolved from earlier land-critters, who evolved from sea critters.

If you had any genuine interest in understanding science, you could look here:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

Answer 5

Well, we didn't exactly evolve from monkeys. We evolved from some unknown anceastor. You may have heard of him, his name is the missing link. A branch of these species evolved into monkeys, a branch into apes, a branch into orangutangs (spelling?), and of course, a branch to humans. The missing link has a lot of mystery around it. We don't know if it still exists, but it is how humans evolved.

Answer 6

because humans didnt evolve from MONKEYS. Anatomically modern humans evolved from an ape-like common ancestor. Apes and monkeys are both primates, but completely different behaviorally, morphologically, and by brain size.

PLEASE do some research. Please. You kinda look like an idiot when you talk about evolution and monkeys.

Answer 7

Bravo Zulu and icabod got it right.  The Anthro major got it wrong.  You have to understand that there is a process called speciation.  It is how one species can evolve into two.  There are different ways but a common way would be for a species to be separated by some physical barrier such as a mountain range or ocean.  The two separate populations evolve independently.  Let  just suppose that one population lives in a place where the climate gets drier.  That population would be under pressure to evolve characteristics that make it more able to survive in the desert.

Monkeys are supremely evolved for their habitat.  I don't think you would be able to survive climbing around the trees eating fruit.  It is a common misperception that humans are the pinnacle of evolution.  We are not.  We are very well adapted to our particular niche.  Monkeys are well adapted to theirs.

Answer 8

Good answer from Icabod.

Yes, basically, no one has said that humans evolved from monkeys. This kind of oversimplification of evolutionary theory does indeed a lot of bad service.

Humans did not evolve from any of the modern day primates, but rather, humans and all modern day primates evolved from some common, now indeed dissapeared, ancestor.