Evolution From Monkeys

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“Evolution says humans came from monkeys. I went to South America and saw monkeys. If evolution is true, why don't monkeys turn into humans?” To answer this question one must truly understand evolution and how it occurs. Evolution allows a species to change and adapt to a constant changing world. Evolution occurs through natural selection. Natural selection is a process that an individual of a species that is better adapted to their environment to survive and be able to reproduce passing their traits down to their offspring. The traits that are “chosen” by natural selection are specific to that environment. This is what allows species to evolve differently when placed in different environments. For instance, species are able to evolve to have …show more content…

The same conditions would have to be meet for a monkey to develop to be considered Homo sapiens. Even if the same conditions were meet another problem is faced; monkeys have also evolved. Humans did not evolve from monkeys but evolved from apes millions of years ago. The apes that we evolved from are different than the apes that exist today. Today's Homo sapiens and monkeys were split off early in their evolution. Every species is constantly evolving through natural selection. “it is important to remember that while past evolutionary trends apply to the primate order as a whole all primate species were not affected by these trends in the same way.”(Lavenda and Schultz, 112) The environmental conditions under which evolution occurs includes the surrounding species of their environment. Many species have evolved differently based on their competition for food with other species. For example, if member of a species are having difficulty finding food on the low branches of a tree that species might adapt to be able to get the food from higher up on the tree, such as having a longer neck or being able to …show more content…

For millions of year Homo sapiens and other primates have been evolving differently. “We recognized that the placement of a species into the family tree of organisms, or its phylogenetic position, is one that depends on the pattern of branching in the tree and not the age of the branches.” (Hawks, The latest on Homo naledi) It is because today's monkeys are not like the apes we originally evolved from it would an impossible process. The monkey that are around today have different “branch patterns” than Homo sapiens have. Homo sapiens share the same family as chimpanzees but a different genus. If a chimpanzee were to evolve into a Homo sapien they would have to evolve into the genus Homo. “What does distinguish primates, living and extinct, are three different sets of features: ancestral characteristics, past evolutionary trends, and unique features”. (Lavenda and Schultz, 110) It is because of the past evolutionary trends that would not allow monkey to develop into human

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