Why, If Man Is Descended From Apes, Do We Still Have Apes? – ‘The Why’

Welcome to today’s edition of The Why.

Everywhere you look the media is pushing you telling you who to follow, what to watch and when to watch it.   You’re even sometimes told how to do it all.  Truth is, here at American Live Wire we do a bit of that too.  The big difference is we also tell you why.

You ask the questions.  We provide the answers.

“Why, if man is descended from apes, do we still have apes?” you ask? You might also wonder if this is an argument against evolution. Yes, at times, it is albeit incorrectly. If you actually consult such publications as Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, you will see that it states: “(T)oday there is no significant scientific doubt about the close evolutionary relationships among all primates, including humans.”

Evolution / Image: SteveDale

But that doesn’t answer the question: “Why, if man is descended from apes, do we still have apes?” No, but it’s related just as we are to the apes of today.

“Why, if man is descended from apes, do we still have apes?” We still have apes because according to both off and online sources evolution is not a “find-and-replace” process. Evolutionary trees might branch off into various directions but that doesn’t mean that everything else not branching off then dies. Archaeological discoveries show that there is an “evolutionary sequence” if you will that leads from ape-like life forms to present-day humans.

“Why, if man is descended from apes, do we still have apes?” Strictly speaking, experts will tell you that we didn’t evolve from the apes we have today. We do, however, share what scientists call “a common ancestor” of a now non-existent species.

The NAS states that since we have this “common ancestor” with gorillas and chimps, we have a lot of anatomical, behavioral, biochemical and genetic similarities with African apes. They report that we “are less similar to the Asian apes, orangutans and gibbons and even less similar to monkeys, because we share common ancestors with these groups in the more distant past.”

At some point in our history we branched off from each other and stopped sharing genes. The differences in our genes increased to the point where we were so different we couldn’t interbreed and became separate species. The two species eventually gave rise to new species as time passed.

Evolution / Image ImgArcade

“Why, if man is descended from apes, do we still have apes?” The “ape-like” creatures that preceded us split into several different branches which themselves evolved again and again. (It’s a little like that classic shampoo commercial . . .”and they told two friends, and so on and so on and so on.”) Some died off and others thrived. One of the surviving groups included us. Other survivors included the apes you see in the zoo today.

“Why, if man is descended from apes, do we still have apes?” Now you know.

(So go celebrate and dance like a monkey.)

You ask the questions.  We provide the answers.

American Live Wire . . . Listen and be heard.