About that "Humans Evolved from Apes" Thing

Unfortunately, creationists see well-meaning people offer an "argument" along the lines of, "If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?" Cringeworthy. On more than one occasion, I've tried to gently correct the person making the comment. It is actually a straw man argument (probably not deliberate) that misrepresents the universal common ancestor evolutionary view that humans and apes evolved separately from a common ancestor. That kind of comment also shows ignorance of their beliefs. Anti-creationists choose to misrepresent, and have little knowledge of, biblical creationist teachings, but we do not want to be like them.

Credit: Morguefile / hotblack

Let's step back a bit and cut the uninformed some slack. I can see where they get the ideas, since there was a putative ape-like common ancestor for us and them. Add in the survival of the fittest mythology where the strong survive and pass along their superior genes while the weak die out. Then we hear about ape-men. So, superficially, it seems like a reasonable statement, and you might see where people got the idea. However, for those of you who still persist on arguing the "evolved from apes so there shouldn't be apes" line, here are two words for you.

Now, let's get away from the monkey business.

"Stop it, Cowboy Bob!"

Darwin's Flying Monkeys© gleefully post the false information that we have a 98 percent genetic similarity to our alleged closes evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees. That number has been greatly reduced with better research and less circular reasoning. There is also no time for the vast amount of beneficial mutations to accumulate and make the differences between the human and ape genomes. By the way, notice that you don't hear about the similarities with gorilla genomes, which are not supposed to exist.

Other factors come into play, such as mitochondrial DNA (passed along from mother to daughter), the Y-chromosome that goes from father to son, and the rate of genetic decay. Then there are the fossils, which are either human, ape, or a careless mix of fossil bones of both apes and humans. These are devastating to their evolutionary paradigm. The truth about our origins is found in God's revealed Word, not in the constantly failing whims of evolutionary guesswork.

Since Charles Darwin first proposed the basis for such ideas in the 19th century when he wrote On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, molecules-to-man evolution has increasingly been taught as fact. Later, he fleshed out the idea of human evolution from a common ancestor with apes in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. . .

The concept that humans and apes share a common ancestor contrasts with what we read in the Bible. . .

The two contrasting explanations for our existence—and for apes—have obvious philosophical/faith starting points because neither side can go back in time and observe how everything came into being. Both sides can only examine what we have in the present and draw conclusions from that.

To read the entire article, click on "Did humans evolve from apes?" You may also like this collection of links to frauds and bad science regarding our so-called ancestors. In addition, evolutionists claim similarities are evidence of evolution, but assume that evolution happened (one reason is there's no grant money in trying to find proof of evolution itself). Here is an interesting essay, "If We Resemble Apes, Does That Mean We Evolved from Apes?"
  

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