Some hurried people will be fast to tell that NO, HUMANS DO NOT DESCEND FROM MONKEYS. No current monkey existed when apes split from them (old world monkeys) some 25-30 million years ago.
Ok, but before the branching. Weren´t human (and apes) ancestors MONKEYS? Not the same current species of course. But certainly animals that if you found some alive today, we would classify them as "monkeys"?
and in fact, when talking about branching, we are using humans terms and classification for something that nature doesnt really care about. We all know evolution is SMOOTH, but when science classify it must choose "spots" on the evolution tree. Those spots are fossils, which of course, have thousands or millions of years of gaps between them, thus the differences ARE bigger.
what I mean is... if we caught an ape ancestor that came soon after the "branching" of old world monkeys and apes, and looked to classify this alive specimen, would we consider it ape or monkey? Good chances it would be classified as monkey, one more reason to say that yes, we indeed DO descend from monkeys.
ps: usually when I see people saying we DO NOT descend from monkeys it´s usually to correct religious nuts who say it mocking such an "idea" or doubting it. So there goes someone who knows evolution is real and says with a condescending tone "humans DO NOT descend from monkeys". Imho, it seems they are also incurring in an error there.
That argument is only valid when a creationist says something about humans descending from chimps, which obviously is wrong.
Ok, but before the branching. Weren´t human (and apes) ancestors MONKEYS? Not the same current species of course. But certainly animals that if you found some alive today, we would classify them as "monkeys"?
and in fact, when talking about branching, we are using humans terms and classification for something that nature doesnt really care about. We all know evolution is SMOOTH, but when science classify it must choose "spots" on the evolution tree. Those spots are fossils, which of course, have thousands or millions of years of gaps between them, thus the differences ARE bigger.
what I mean is... if we caught an ape ancestor that came soon after the "branching" of old world monkeys and apes, and looked to classify this alive specimen, would we consider it ape or monkey? Good chances it would be classified as monkey, one more reason to say that yes, we indeed DO descend from monkeys.
ps: usually when I see people saying we DO NOT descend from monkeys it´s usually to correct religious nuts who say it mocking such an "idea" or doubting it. So there goes someone who knows evolution is real and says with a condescending tone "humans DO NOT descend from monkeys". Imho, it seems they are also incurring in an error there.
That argument is only valid when a creationist says something about humans descending from chimps, which obviously is wrong.
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=269182&goto=newpost
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