Tell me this: if we evolved from primates, then why do they still exist???

Question

i dont beleive in evolution (especially that humans came from primates!) but i do believe in adaption.

Answer 1

we have a common ancestor.

if we came from dirt why is there still dirt.

Answer 2

Evolution is not a contest you win and is not linear.

If all Protestants came from Catholics, why do we still have Catholics?

Answer 3

because we didn't evolve from another species, everything is born of it's own kind. just the way it still works today.

Answer 4

Adaption?  Well then you "believe" in evolution.  What is really important is you don't know what it is your are talking about.  

Understanding Evolution

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

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

Answer 5

We are primates & the reason we still exist is because we got to the top of the food chain. Humans are primates!

Answer 6

Because that isn't how evolution works.

Let's start with something simple:  an elm tree.  There it is, growing away out there, when one day one seed out of the millions that tree produced has a mutation, totally at random.  All the other trees still exist, but that one elm tree has a gene that makes its leaves a different shape.  That tree gets bigger and has a whole bunch of little trees that look just like it.  It's just a tree.  The parent tree and all the other little trees that look like it are still there.

Now, all could continue to go well with the trees.  Maybe the climate stays the same and everything is fine, and now we have two species of trees where we used to have one.  Or maybe a family of goats move to the forest and start eating the leaves.  Maybe the leaves of the original tree taste bad to the goats, so they eat all the leaves off the new trees.  That makes an evolutionary dead end.  Or maybe the goats eat the old trees and leave the new ones, so the mutation becomes a successful adaptation.  Or maybe there are no goats, so all the trees just keep growing side by side for millenia.

Evolution *is* adaptation.  I believe that millions of years ago, there was a common ancestor for apes and humanity.  These fossils haven't been found yet, possibly because there aren't any to find.  Apes tend to live in places where fossils can't form due to humidity, acidity of soil, etc.  Humans, great apes, and chimpanzees are all descended from that ancestor because one day a random mutation occurred.  Just like in our trees.  Adaptation doesn't cause extinction.

Answer 7

The same reason that not all humans are intelligent, the same color, like the same food, wear similar clothing, speak different languages, have different social customs.  I could go on and on, but I think you get the message.

Oh yes, isn't adaptation the same as evolution?

Answer 8

Because the primates didn't evolve in the way that we did . What made the Homo sapiens and to a certain point Neanderthal man evolve was the development of the opposable thumbs that made manipulation of objects possible for them.

There is no reason why one day another primate or another species will also evolve and by the way humans are going by that time they may be extinct.

The science fiction book "The Planets of the Apes" was based on such a possibility. It was fantasy of course but you never know.

I rarely answer religious questions and I don't expect best answer, but it's a good question anyway.

Answer 9

NO!!!   THE MOVIE "PRIMATES OF THE CARRIBEAN"  HAS STIRRED UP ALOT OF TALK.  IT IS STRICTLY FICTITIOUS.   YOU KNOW HOW HOLLYWOOD IS.

Answer 10

Nowhere in any credible source about human evolution does it say we came from apes, but  that we both diverged from a common ancestor around 6 million years ago. One basic premise of evolutionary theory is that natural selection favors a species that can adapt to a larger variety of environments. Therefore, since you believe in adaptation (which is a favorable evolutionary trait), you must also believe in evolution. I bid you good day.

Answer 11

Humans did not evolve from primates ( monkeys).

We evolved or adapted as you say from a species of homo-sapien.

Similar but not the same.