If evolution is true why are there still monkeys?

Question

Important concepts to answer this question:

What are mutations and what are the implications of them?

What is selection and how does it act on mutations?

What is a species and how doe new species arise?

Answer 1

All organisms are related to each other by common ancestry meaning lineages of organisms split over time to give rise to different species such as humans, and various species of monkeys.

There is a common misconception that humans evolved from monkeys. The more accurate statement is that humans and monkeys shared a common ancestor back in time and have now split to form distinct organisms. One needs to understand that the course of evolution cannot be represented by a linear stick because monkeys did not evolve into humans. Evolution can in-fact be represented by a tree, with split branches that represent different lineages. So monkeys and humans are different branches of the tree that share a common base branch. They have both evolved over time and will continue to evolve.

Answer 2

Hi

This is a great question. Evolution can be largely viewed as a process driven by two forces, 1) Change over time as represented the accumulation of random mutations in a population and 2) selective pressures that favor some specific mutations over others---in a specific environment. So keeping that in mind it is important to understand that evolution is not some process where all primates are gradually becoming more human-like. Rather there was some ancestral primate population (that humans and modern primates shared an ancestor with) that randomly may have contained a mutation (1) that made them more able to adapt to a specific environment (2). Over time individuals with this mutation were able to live longer and produce more offspring with this specific advantageous mutation. This trend of random mutation followed by passing on advantageous mutations to suit the environment continues for many multiple generations which ultimately results in humans. Other ancestral primate populations may have undergone evolution that led to the development of modern primates. So just because one ancestral primate population had this random mutation that was well suited for the environment does not mean all ancestral primate populations did. This is why we can see variation in modern day primate evolution.

An easy way to visualize this today is the emergence of antibiotic resistant S. aureus like MRSA. MRSA arose due to the over use of antibiotics. Some S. aureus contained a random mutation that made them resistant to antibiotics. So in the presence of antibiotics MRSA has an advantage over Wt S. aureus, allowing them to reproduce more rapidly and constitute a greater percentage of the S. aureus population. However, in the absence of antibiotics there is no selective pressure driving an increase in MRSA, so S. aureus continues to exist.

Answer 3

Evolution is driven by evolutionary pressures. This is to say, species adapt over time in response to their environments. I'll give you commonly cited example. During the industrial revolution, there was a huge increase in smog and soot due to the recent development of factories. Scientists noticed that the moths that were once white were turning black--and no they were not simply stained by the soot. Why, you might ask? Well, the answer is evolution. The black moths blended in better with their new sooty environment, and thus the moths harboring mutations making them black were more likely not to have been eaten by predators, and thus they persisted. You can imagine, now, an area in the US where no factories existed. These moths would not have this evolutionary pressure to become black, and thus they would remain white. Now, we can imagine a similar situation with monkeys and humans. Although the evolutionary pressures are less clear, you can imagine a situation where there is some evolutionary pressure that acted on one group of monkeys and not another, driving the evolution in the former group towards humans. This change would happen slowly, over countless years, countless mutations, and countless evolutionary pressures, but it would happen eventually. If you have any other questions, let me know!