Question about monkeys

I really dont know much about evolution but there is one thing that I was wondering about. If I am right evolutionist believe that we evolved from monkeys. I really dont know much so dont bite my head of but if we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys around? Why wouldnt all the monkeys now be evolved into humans?Do yall believe that we only evolved from one monkey? Not trying to get in a debate just a question. Thanks.

Actually, humans didn't evolve from monkeys. Monkeys, according to current scientific knowledge, are not mono-phyletic, meaning that the common ancestor of all monkeys is also a common ancestor to things that are not monkeys, namely the apes. So "monkey" is not a name of a taxon, at least not if you are cladistically inclined, heh.But this is a quibble. Certainly if you go far enough back in the evolutionary lineage of humans there is an animal that, to us, would look like a monkey.Well, descendents of that "monkey" did evolve. One line evolved into apes (including humans), and other lines evolved into the other monkeys that we see today. So the monkeys continued to evolve, and still continue to evolve. We are all just evolving in different directions.

Evolution is a branching bush, not a ladder. That is, species branch off into separate species. Usually, a whole species does not become a completely different species entirely. So instead of A-->B, it is more like A--->B + C, or even A --->A + B. Also, the "monkeys" alive today are different than those found when the human line split off, or rather the ape line. You might as well be asking why there are still bacteria, fungus, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and other mammals since they are part of our ancestory as well. Human common ancestory and evolution go back farther than a common ancestor with current day monkeys.

I think you mean Apes not monkeys(big difference)Apes are creatures that include Chimps , Orangutans, Gorillas and Yes Humans Fall into this Group as well. Chimps are our closest relatives.Monkeys are things like Spider Monkeys etc...anyway to answer the question. If you do some looking into the fossil Record you will see there are no exact species from millions of years ago still around today.
So the Creatures that where our ancestors are no longer alive today.As I said before Chimps are our closest relatives( we share 98% of our DNA)But this doesn't mean we evolved from Chimps.
This means Chimps and Humans share a fairly recent ancestor.If you have any more problems just ask We only get upset here when People tell us something like you said as proof we are wrong. Rather then simply asking like you did

Chimpazees are sort of a cousin to us. Long ago, there was a population of animals that were a common ancestor to both humans and chimpanzees. It broke up into at least two groups, and those groups broke up later on, and so on and so on until they all evolved into the creatures we have today. Everything went in its own direction, changing separately. Also, natural selection favored certain individuals more than others, so humans come from one environment, and chimps come from another, and any other organism you look at is the product of its ancestors' changing environment.It is important to realize that evolution is not a big ladder with humans sitting on the top and bacteria at the bottom. Everything is related if you go back far enough, and all organisms, even bacteria, are far more complex than the first prokaryotes, which came into being about 3.7 billion years ago. All the organisms that exist today are the products of natural selection and mutations that occured in changing environments. What may have aided in survival and reproduction in one environment may have been detrimental a few years later. Let that run for 3.7 billion years, and you have the incredible diversity of life that exists today.EDIT: I meant to reply to the first message, actually, not this one.[This message has been edited by Gary, 03-31-2004]

By analogy, a pretty much equivalent question is: if you're descended from your grandparents, why do you have cousins?

See "Arguments we think creationists should NOT use" (click) for the AIG answer to this chestnut.Reading the whole thing might help you get a start on the real issues.

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