So, when people try to refute evolution by saying that if humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes, arn't they wrong because humans didn't evolve from apes, they just share a common ancestor. Am I right? I don't know much about evolution so feel free to educate me.
Evolution
- Thread starter Enigma'07
- Start date
paulsamuel
Registered Senior Member
that's correct. they are trying to mislead, which is dishonest. it is also un-Christian, even if they're lying to promote a literal interpretation of the bible. so when people tell you that they're christian, then lie about creationism and evolution, remember, "by their fruits shall ye know them"
there are so many species of apes and other primates, yes we share a common ancestor
During the course of evolution, some ultimately evolved to modern humans, some others evolved to chimps, apes, or other primates, all the species we see today are results from evolution
"if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?"
because we only evolved from a certain species of apes, I guess you can say that, there are just too many species of apes and primates, some evolved into humans, and some evolved into modern apes and chimps, depending on their environment and diets thousands of years ago
During the course of evolution, some ultimately evolved to modern humans, some others evolved to chimps, apes, or other primates, all the species we see today are results from evolution
"if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?"
because we only evolved from a certain species of apes, I guess you can say that, there are just too many species of apes and primates, some evolved into humans, and some evolved into modern apes and chimps, depending on their environment and diets thousands of years ago
Hi Enigma'07
The reason there are still apes is because evolution is about survival not progress. What survives breeds, what doesn’t survive doesn’t breed.
Worms, cockroaches and spiders are all thriving in their environments and thus have no need to grow big brains and turn into us.
Apes and monkeys exploit food supplies high in the trees, which we cannot easily reach. If they were to leave the trees they would be leaving behind valuable food.
Those that did leave left because of fierce competition for limited resources. It could be argued that our ancestors were the rejects.
The argument that we didn’t evolve from apes or monkeys is one of the dumbest ever. We didn’t evolve from modern apes such as chimpanzees or gorillas but we do share a close ancestor, which was most definitely an ape. Likewise apes evolved from an ancestor of modern monkeys, which must itself have been a monkey or apes would not have those features we think off as monkey like.
The reason there are no intermediates between us and the apes is because they competed for the same resources as us, so we killed them all.
The reason there are still apes is because evolution is about survival not progress. What survives breeds, what doesn’t survive doesn’t breed.
Worms, cockroaches and spiders are all thriving in their environments and thus have no need to grow big brains and turn into us.
Apes and monkeys exploit food supplies high in the trees, which we cannot easily reach. If they were to leave the trees they would be leaving behind valuable food.
Those that did leave left because of fierce competition for limited resources. It could be argued that our ancestors were the rejects.
The argument that we didn’t evolve from apes or monkeys is one of the dumbest ever. We didn’t evolve from modern apes such as chimpanzees or gorillas but we do share a close ancestor, which was most definitely an ape. Likewise apes evolved from an ancestor of modern monkeys, which must itself have been a monkey or apes would not have those features we think off as monkey like.
The reason there are no intermediates between us and the apes is because they competed for the same resources as us, so we killed them all.
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Enigma'07 said:
yes common ancestor. Enigma...at my day job there is this guy who is studying anthropoghy at the univesity of Texas (in Austin). I started picking his brains and asked him that very question of which I got the same answer you just gave...common anscestor. If you want to study evolution what I am finding out...and what you hopefully will find out too..is that anthropology seems to know a lot of those answers....I am still really new to it though....never taken a course or anything...
as a footnote...at my day job i sit next to three hard-core Christians who all creationalist...and two of them get really annoyed when my anthropoghy friend indulges my questions...the last one gets uncomfortable. They never argue with him though.......don't think they would do well though..guy seems to know his anthropolgy.....
Like Douglas Adams wrote (paraphrased), people evolved from apes, but we still never invite them to dinner.
Yeah, informally I think that is okay to call apes or monkeys the common ancestors of humans and apes, because they're definitely very ape-like. The problem is that some people think that we evolved from chimpanzees specifically.Igor Trip said:
But at the time that it was happening, there were not a great difference from "us" and the intermediates, at least if we're talking of the gradual part of evolution. Despite of the eventual confronts of already morphologically diverged populations, the "us" that won the intermediates, were intermediates themselves as well, in a relatively slow, progressive* replacement of sightly different forms.Igor Trip said:
*by "progressive" I do not mean that there's some sort of absolute progress in nature, where humans are the supreme beings, but just the relative progress in direction of a certain adaptative peak, in this case, and only in this case. the human form. The evolution of any other being also were a relative progress, but in direction of their own adaptative peaks, such as faster legs for cheetahs and better grasping feets for arboreal apes.
Evolution will only occur when selective pressures are present - if a population was split (say, by some geological feature) then it would be possible for one group to remain evolutionarily stagnant.
I believe there was one such split in human evolution, from an ape Ramicus (see book 'African Exodus').
I believe there was one such split in human evolution, from an ape Ramicus (see book 'African Exodus').
paulsamuel
Registered Senior Member
Why do you think that? What about genetic drift? That's evolution, too.Blue_UK said:
paulsamuel
Registered Senior Member
Blue_UK said:
I can't agree that they're unchanged. The coelocanth is a genus, I think we know that the extant coelocanth is a different species than the fossil one (which is also true for the turtles, alligators and crocs.).
Also, selective pressures still exist even if we don't see gross morphological changes.
So, I guess I don't agree with evolutionary stagnation. Do you have references regarding evolutionary stagnation, cause I would love to read them.
About the coelocanth, I think there are different species of them today. They exist in a band from east Africa to the Phillipines. The Phillipine Coelocanth is a different species than the African Coelocanth. I think. They might just have been proven to be genetically unrelated or something. As in not having interbred for a large number of years. I only know about them from a documentary I saw awhile back and I have forgotten for sure.
Interestingly, even cases of "stagnated" evolutionary (wouldn't be better referring to this as cases of high morphological/phenetic conservation?) doesn't mean that there was fewer change than some species that had more noticeable change. Much of the evolution can be forth-and-back morphological change. I've read about that in "The beak of the finch" by Jonathan Weiner. There are some units of evolution (nothing to do with units of selection), made up by someone. I guess that darwins were created by Haldane, and then someone created the haldanes. Anyway, if we look at two distant points of evolution and measure the morphological difference, that doesn't represent the total real morphological change that occurred. Analogue at if you take a map and measure the miles of distance between two certain points simply with a ruler, and then take you car and actually drive from one point to another, not in a straight line, due to the real streets, the difference may be significantly high, even if you can make the shortest possible route.
With that in mind, it's less astounding the variety obtained in dog breeds. Through strategic breeding, it was like taking almost a straight line.
With that in mind, it's less astounding the variety obtained in dog breeds. Through strategic breeding, it was like taking almost a straight line.