If humans evolved from fish or chimpanzees, why are there still fish and chimpan

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   dianetrotterposted 11 years ago

   If humans evolved from fish or chimpanzees, why are there still fish and chimpanzees?
   
   Many scientists agree that man evolved from fish or chimpanzees.  If that is the case, why are there still fish and chimpanzees.  Why are there not stages of evolution going on now?  There may be a fish/monkey anomaly but evolution suggests a process.  I'm thinking of caterpillar to a butterfly.  What do you think?

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   Garifaliaposted 11 years ago

   Humans did not evolve from sea animals; land animals did. As for our monkey ancesstors, as far as I know it was a particular type which lived in a specific area. The needs of the time forced them to come down from the trees and search for food on land. As the facts have been presented they make sense to me. But we'll never know for sure, will we?

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   Melissa A Smithposted 11 years ago

   I think this may be relevant for your understanding: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar … vograms_04
   
   Chimps evolved from early primates, who evolved from early tetrapods. Mudskippers are fish that are a great example of what these early fish may have looked like. Tetrapods are said to have evolved from lobbed-finned fishes who had bone arrangements that gave rise to legs.
   
   Animals differentiate into different species when they evolve toward different niches, and that results in their unique characteristics. Some animals don't change much if natural selection favors it. Sharks and crocodilians are an example of an animal who has been unchanged for a long amount of time.

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   johndnathanposted 11 years ago

   Humans and chimpanzees both evolved from a common ancestor.  These are gradual shifts occurring over millions of years in different lineages.  Eventually it crosses a threshold where the two species are so different that they are unable to successfully interbreed without serious complications.  This incorrectly-phrased trap question has been answered by science many times before, so there is no need to spend any more time on it.

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   Meg Davisposted 11 years ago

   Because man didn't evolve from fish or chimpanzees.  Chimps and men have common ancestors.  Men evolved from chimp-like creatures, which probably evolved from some type of water creature.

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   Jeremydposted 11 years ago

   Evolution doesn't have to be the entirety of a species changing into something else.  Lets say you have a wide ranging species of fish.  One small group of these fish, a family group maybe begin spending much of their time in shallow water.  Slowly over thousands and millions of years this family group will start adapting behavior to a life completely in the shallows.  Then slowly not only will their behavior adapt but so will their genetics.  They may form longer fins than can be used to drag them across the bottom.  Or even beach themselves to hunt small prey on land.  Millions more years down the road those fish may crawl onto land permanently.  All the while the ocean-going brothers from their original species never changed a bit because they stuck with their original behavior patterns.
   
   You see it in species today.  We all know lions as prowling the Serengeti, but there's a small group of lions of the exact same species who only live in wetland swamps.  Now there's no physical mutation here, but because of behavior patters if you dropped these swamp lions off on the plains they would likely die.  The techniques they hunt would wouldn't be viable.

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      dianetrotterposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Well Melissa, Garafalia, Meg, Emily, Jeremy, and Jonathan, my dilemma is selecting best answer.  I personally agree with Emily because I believe the Bible.  The interesting about evolution it that everyone has their own version.  Hp picked Melissa!

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   Old Empresarioposted 11 years ago

   No; no scientist has said that humans evolved from chimps. Scientists have said that humans and chimps share a common ancestor. They both evolved separately. The chimp is the closest living relative to humans; not the closest living ancestor. That is a big difference. Chimp DNA and human DNA are 98% identical, while the mutational patterns in the DNA give scientists an idea of how long ago the two species diverged. Mind you, evolution into a completely different species takes hundreds of thousands of years.

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      dianetrotterposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      So humans evolved from?

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      lone77starposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Scientists are only guessing about our ancestors. But they may find that they're wrong. Neanderthal, for instance, could've been merely parallel evolution, like new and old world cacti. God created evolution for a purpose.

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      manishgyawali25posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      i dont think that human are evolved from chimp in my view it is from dog becoz the brain capacity of dog is more thab monkeey and dog is domestic whereas monkey is wild and another point those organs such as pinna of ear which doesnt exist in monkey

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   dianetrotterposted 11 years ago

   Empessario, Genesis says absolutely nothing about the earth being flat.  If I remember correctly, the word "earth" is not even in the creation.

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      lone77starposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Earth is mentioned in Genesis 1:1, but don't take any of it too literally. Remember the wisdom -- the letter kills, but the spirit of the word brings life. Only humility (an empty cup) will allow you to learn the wisdom hidden in the Bible.

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   lone77starposted 11 years ago

   The idea behind evolution is that primates (of which humans are a part) came from species that no longer exist. The fish that crawled out of the seas no longer exists today.
   
   Evolution continues, just as stars continue to grow old and die.
   
   God created all of the laws of physical reality, including those of evolution.
   
   But it may be that humans were a special case -- created either from scratch, or genetically engineered by God or angels to serve a special purpose. You see, God's children had become lost in physical reality. They had become so attached to the physical that they could not see without a physical eye. They could not control without a physical arm or hand. They were lost in the "Long Sleep" of darkness from the forbidden fruit of mortal dichotomies -- the action-reaction pairs of physical continuity.
   
   Only with human bodies could His children have a chance to develop civilization, and the methods of study that would allow them to think on Christ and salvation.
   
   There is a timeline embedded in Genesis which is compatible with those of science. And it places the start of Homo sapiens (Adam) at 10,434,130 BC -- right in the middle of the Miocene Epoch -- when giants ruled the Earth -- mammals as large as the dinosaurs that had died out 53 million years earlier.

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      dianetrotterposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Wow!  This is really heavy.  Thank you for your perspective LoneStar!

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    phriotposted 11 years ago

    I understand that you're a Christian creationist (Christianity doesn't have the only creation story.) and I don't want to steal anyone's thunder, but I do want to weigh in and agree with the posters that are stating that evolutionary theory doesn't claim that man evolved from chimpanzees (or fish), but merely that they share a common ancestor.  What is really claimed is that chimpanzees and humans shared a common ancestor and that chimps went down one road and humans down another.
    
    I feel that I am qualified to make this statement, as I have a degree in Biology and am pursuing graduate study area (but not in Evolutionary Biology).
    
    Furthermore, evolution is constantly occurring; scientists delineate between microevolution and macroevolution.  I could provide some examples if you're interested.
    
    Please note that I respect your beliefs and write mainly to educate on the actual scientific claims.

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       dianetrotterposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Thank you phriot ... especially for the civil tone.  I asked specifically about humans, chimps, and fish because I had read/heard about those theories.  In school we did spend time going through the neanderthal, cromagnon, and ? (name escapes me).

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    mikejhcaposted 11 years ago

    It is a fact the dogs evolved from wolves.  There are all kinds of different dogs and wolves still exist.  People have killed off most of the wolves off but the wolf population is not down because most of them evolved into dogs.  The most recent evolution that I know about occurred because of selective breeding.  Humans can cause animals to evolve faster than the animals would evolve in the wild.  People wanted dogs that had specific traits and they got them using selective breeding.  In nature the animals that breed are the ones that survive long enough to breed and are appealing enough to attract a mate.
    
    When animals evolve they don't magically all evolve.  It is not something that just happens with time.  If you could get specific animals to breed you could get animals with the traits you wanted over generations you could cause animals to evolve into a new animal.  It could also happen in the wild but would probably take many more generations.  The older animal species would still exist unless something bad happened to them.

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       dianetrotterposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Thank you Mike!  Well thought out and organized.  It is difficult for me to recognize the difference between German Shepherds and some wolves.  Not that I've looked that closely.

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