(March 8, 2016 at 9:14 pm)Old Baby Wrote:(March 8, 2016 at 9:05 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: Almost. The prosimians/Anthropoidea are ancestors of the common ancestor humans share with monkeys. We are apes.
The common theist argument is that we evolved from chimps and gorillas, and that's the point I thought he was making.
Very interesting. I never considered that the common ancestor of humans and monkeys could be... monkeys. Seems kind of obvious, but it it's confusing when most of the sources out there say that humans did NOT evolve from monkeys. I suppose they must be talking about extant monkeys. Then again, maybe not every source recognizes those extinct monkey types as actual monkeys.
My head hurts.
It's very simple, really. I think the entire confusion here is due to two things: first, are we talking about our immediate ancestors, or just ancestors in general (including earlier ancestors); second, are we talking about current monkeys or monkeys in general (which includes extinct ones)?
Often, people who do not understand evolution think it says that we evolved from monkeys - or apes - that currently exist. And sometimes these are the same people who then ask "why are there still monkeys (apes)?" This often leads evolutionists to claim "we did not evolve from apes!" (meaning from any of the species in the current batch of apes) or from monkeys!
In fact, we did evolve from apes - and from monkeys. (Also, as some on this thread have already pointed out, we are apes - there is no reason to set humans apart from the other great apes, as all five species in the group are more closely related to one another than to the lesser apes, the gibbons). But what it means to say that humans evolved from apes is that our direct ancestor was an ape (what else would it be?!) - though of of course not an existing ape species (it was probably either Homo erectus or some closely related species). And what it means to say we evolved from monkeys is that we are descendants of monkeys - though not of any existing monkey species. Also, no monkey is our immediate ancestor, but at most a great-great-ancestor.
