If humans evolved from monkeys, why are they still here?

As Vieuxmalin and Ravend have said, it's important to think of evolution like a tree with branches where species become so distinct from each other that they no longer interbreed. Imagine, if you like, a group of apes living in a particular area. After a while some of them may move away to a different area with different conditions. Perhaps one group lives in a forest and the other lives in a savannah or grassland area. The forest group will use different skills to survive from the skills that the grassland group need and, over time - hundreds of thousands of years - these two groups will become more and more adapted to their own environments because, with each generation, the individuals who happen to be better at living in their chosen environment will tend to breed more and pass on their useful genes. After a very long time, these two groups will become so different that they are different species. This, very basically, is how the different species of ape evolved (and, indeed, essentially, how all life on this earth has probably evolved). It is why there are, today, many different species of ape - orang-utans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and all the others, including humans. WHY we are apparently so different, we don't know, but HOW we became so is fairly easy to understand, even if many of the details have still to be worked out. None of this really contradicts the Creation stories as they are written in the Bible. It is true that the whole universe up to the coming of Man didn't happen in seven days and that Man wasn't literally created from the dust of the earth and Eve wasn't literally taken from Adam's rib bone. These are poetic descriptions and metaphors. What IS remarkable about the Creation stories in the Bible (and what sets them apart from all the other Creation stories that men in all cultures have devised) is that, before the simple herdsmen (who told the stories round their campfires) knew or understood anything at all about 'science' as we have it today, they put things very much in the right order - the order that far more knowledgeable people have since determined was the way that life evolved. How could such unsophisticated people have done that without hearing the story from the One who created all things?

Re: "If humans evolved from monkeys, why are they still here?" Evolutionary theory argues that no twoo species which occupy the same part of an ecosystem (perform the exact same functions) will survive (over time) simultaneously. Rather, one will be better adapted and will win out and reproduce successfully and the other will become extinct. So, in order for humans and monkeys to have both evolved simultaneously along parallel paths from our common ancestor (Great Apes), we must both have performed distinct functions in the ecosystems to which were were each best adpated. This makes some kind of intuitive sense: monkeys are much better suited to climbing trees and picking fruit from high brances etc. Humans are good at making and using tools for hunting, building shelters... driving cars, typing emails etc. Monkeys and humans were not direct competitors but instead each became specialised and evolved to best adapt to their own surroundings and functions, in which they became dominant.

Like they said... its like a tree... plus that.. science is a question of how, not of why. :)

I dunno. Let me get a banana first so that i can think clearly.

No, it was a slightly different genetic strain that our ancestors develpoed that helped them get up onto two feet and start talking. I know it's not as basic as this, but that's how it is. There are so many different types of monkey breeds and us humans are just from a set whose genetics moved on.

I don't believe in that theory, so I have the same question as you do.

Hi damned_dle, I am afraid if all these apes becomes human there will be no place for us who are already humans!either it may be a type of cycle where we humans becomes apes when we are doing wrong in our human life and the apes becomes human when they are doing or behaving good in their apes life. On the whole in either of the scenario it is not possible either of the two to change over to Human or Apes,completely and both of us will remain and co-exist together in order to put an example to each other,who is going to become what on each of our next birth. unfortunately its the politicians and the rich person's dilemma; b'coz at the present life they won't sacrifice their wealth(earned wrongly)nor the politician will leave the power of the chair(committing inhuman acts,so they are on the line going to loose everything on either cases. Happy mylotting.