If humans evolved from monkey's/apes, why are they still here?
By rein_rgm
@rein_rgm (388)
Philippines
3 responses
@misskatonic (3723)
• United States
14 Dec 06
Because both human and apes fill an evolutionary niche.
Think of it like a tree. Apes and humans are branches on a tree, both stemming from the same trunk. Apes stayed in one climate, humans moved to another. Humans adapted to that climate, apes didn't need to adapt any because there was no environmental change. Humans were exposed to different outside factors than apes were, and so adapted differently. Those adaptions were passed on stronger and stronger with each generation, changing the original species into something new over the course of many, many generations. The apes remained, and therefor weren't influenced by any new outside factors. No adaption. No change.
@misskatonic (3723)
• United States
14 Dec 06
I dabbled a little in biogenetics in school, and genetic adaptation was covered pretty early on.
But I figured out pretty quickly that I was more interested in the brain than the body. :D Switched over to abnormal criminal psychology.
@volatile (204)
• United States
14 Dec 06
Because evolution doesn't equate to extinction. Evolution occurs because of different environmental factors. The organism "mutates" to best deal with the environment it exists in. If you look at Darwin's study of the Galapagos you will see that what started off as one speicies of bird on the islands branched off into several new evolved species. In one tiny area there were numerous variations of a species just because of the type of food was available to them. So...people basically evolved from the same base species as monkeys and apes..but since we were not in direct competition with eachother the others were not eliminated. The species that we eliminated were the neanderthals.