How did humans evolve from chimpanzees?

Answer 1

Today, evolutionists insist that the underlying similarity of all animals, including man, and our ability to arrange and classify them into groups, is compelling evidence for their progressive evolution from a common ancestor. They insist that there is simply no other thinkable explanation for their similarities. Evolutionists argue further that the degree of similarity between any two animals attests to their degree of evolutionary "relatedness," and thus how recently they separated from a common ancestor. They are quite certain, for example, that the similarities between apes and humans prove they evolved from a common ape-like ancestor "only" 2 or 3 million years ago. Perhaps you heard the story of the evolutionist who dug up a fossilized fragment of an ape's jaw and promptly declared it to be an ancestor of man -- he was so excited about the find he said, "I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it." http://www.gennet.org/facts/metro05.html Since evolutionists generally do not believe that man evolved from any ape that is now living, they look to extinct apes in the fossil record to provide them with their desired evidence. Specifically, they look for any anatomical feature that looks "intermediate" between that of apes and man. Fossil apes having such features are declared to be ancestral to man (or at least collateral relatives) and are called hominids. Living apes, on the other hand, are not considered to be "hominids" they only sort of look like humans. Still, evolutionists are willing to accept certain trivial similarities between extinct apes and men as "proof" of ancestry. The most eagerly sought after evidence in fossil "hominids" is any anatomical feature that suggests bipedality (the ability to walk on two legs). http://www.gennet.org/facts/metro19.html The "missing links" are missing. And unfortunately, the field of paleoanthropology has been riddled with fraudulent claims of finding the missing link between humans and primates, to the extent that fragments of human skeletons have been combined with other species such as pigs and apes and passed off as legitimate. The modern theory concerning the evolution of man proposes that humans and apes derive from an apelike ancestor that lived on earth a few million years ago. The theory states that man, through a combination of environmental and genetic factors, emerged as a species to produce the variety of ethnicities seen today, while modern apes evolved on a separate evolutionary pathway. Overall, the evolution of man pervades as the accepted paradigm on the origin of man within the scientific community. This is not because it has been proven scientifically, but because alternative viewpoints bring with them metaphysical implications which go against the modern naturalistic paradigm. Nevertheless, a closer examination of the evidence reveals evolution to be increasingly less scientific and more reliant upon beliefs, not proof. http://www.allaboutscience.org/evolution-of-man.htm

Another Answer:

Man did not evolve from apes but from a common ancestor that evolved not only into apes but also into man. Ken Miller, who in a court of law, helped defeat Intelligent Design teaching proposals in schools, best explains in his website at http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/. Genetics proves humans and apes share a common ancestor.

Answer 2

Humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. Humans, chimpanzees and gorillas share an earlier common ancestor. Humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans share an earlier still common ancestor. These great apes and the gibbons of the Hylobatidae share an even earlier common ancestor. That is how evolution works, by common ancestry, the pattern of phylogeny tracing this out. Now, zoom into the chimpanzees (apes, right?) and notice that there are two species, the chimpanzee and the bonobo. These share an ancestor (an ape) that was very very chimpanzee-like (surely). Now zoom into the gibbons. The latest hylobatids share common ancestors in recent time (from earlier gibbons). In the phylogeny of primates, all the apes (which includes the gibbons) share a common ancestor with the monkeys. More recently, apes and Old World Monkeys share a common ancestor (those are the African and Asian monkeys). Earlier still, New World Monkeys and the Old World Monkey-ape clade share a common ancestor (New World Monkeys are the Neotropical monkeys). Thus the common ancestor of apes and Old Worlders was probably like an Old Worlder itself. The New World - Old World common ancestor might have been New World-like or Old World-like or neither. It has been a tricky thing to ascertain the base of the monkey tree, but perhaps tarsiers represent this base.

Note (importantly) that COMMON ANCESTOR does not mean anything alive today (most likely), but ancient species we might find one day as fossils or might not. Homo sapiens did not evolve from Pan troglodytes. Both are alive today. About 8 million years ago, a species lived that diverged. One line evolved generation by generation, species by species, population by population to the human, another line travelled through change-time species by species, generation by generation, population by population to the extant chimpanzee.

Equally, monkeys did not evolve from tarsiers. They probably evolved from tarsier-like primates. The common ancestor diverged into a thread of life-forms that slowly became more tarsier-like on the one branch and more New Worlder-like on the other.

Humans evolved from apes (extinct, common-ancestory sorts of apes) and those apes evolved from more ancient (extincter?) apes and those evolved from more ancient monkeys. The extant gorillas have their own immediate gorilla ancestors and further back in time more general apey ancestors. And further back in time apeyish animals that may have been the common ancestors of humans and chimpanzees and orangutans and gibbons as well.

Answer 3

We did not. That is a very popular misconception. We, along with chimpanzees, evolved from an ancient common ancestor. At some point, lines diverged, one leading to chimpanzees and the other leading to us. At least, this is one standard view of our evolutionary path.