Why is it said that we descended from the apes? Shouldn’t we say ASCENDED?:smack:
Depending of what you’re trying to say, you’re right. If you’re making a point about developing greater capabilities, sure, but if you’re discussing lineal ancestral relations then ‘descended’ is the normal usage.
Consider the equivalent question: Why do we say that we’re the descendants of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.? Shouldn’t we say that we’re the ascendants of them?
In other words, we use the term “descendant” regardless of whether we think that someone is superior or inferior to their ancestors (and regardless of whether we even think that it’s possible to define what superior or inferior means in such cases). This convention was established in genealogy long before it became established in biology. The question you’re asking has nothing to do with evolution but is just about a quirk of language.
Just to clarify an important point the previous two posters alluded to: During the past seventy years or so, most scientists and scholars have being trying to dispel the idea that “evolution” (in the Darwinian sense of species change over time) equals “progress”. Bacterial species continue to evolve, for example, and by necessity (like all other life forms) almost always in ways which represent adaptations to their particular environment at the time. “Common ancestor of chimps and humans” to “humans” is no different, by and large.
Sure, there are certain measures of complexity that wax and wane in the natural history of one species (or sometimes of a clade – a group of related species) or another; and, a few truly novel phenomena have evolved among humans, e.g., (probably, and depending on your definition) “consciousness”. But the Victorian image of humans “ascending” over time is no longer the main way we think of human evolution.
“Descend,” in this case means “To be derived in the way of generation; to come of, spring from (an ancestor or ancestral stock)”(from the OED). You can descend from German immigrants, for instance.
It does not mean “to move down.”
It’s just a semantic convention. ‘Down’ through the generations, ‘up’ the family tree, etc. It would neither be more nor less correct to start calling it anything else.
Everyone so far is right. The term descendant is based on a the type of view commonly used in gemology charts. Imagine some type of Adam and Eve founders (even if it is just your great grandparents) with them at the top and all following generations below it branching off. You follow the chart from top to bottom so those below the founders are the descendants. The term ascendants isn’t commonly used in genealogy. Those are ancestors.
Judging from other posts by the same chap, this is a religious drive-by.
God (the Protestant Christian version naturally) exists and any evidence that contradicts the Bible is the work of Satan.
glee writes:
> Judging from other posts by the same chap, this is a religious drive-by.
>
> God (the Protestant Christian version naturally) exists and any evidence that
> contradicts the Bible is the work of Satan.
Yes, we know that perfectly well. There’s no point in talking about it though. These people do this to get a snide reaction from us, and you just gave them one. They ask us these questions expecting that we’ll tell them how stupid they are or what jerks they are. When we react in that way, that just convinces them further that we hate them and that we think they’re too worthless to be given a straight answer. When we give them a polite, informative answer, they will be temporarily stunned and astonished that we don’t hate them and consider them worthy of teaching. That will make them think about whether there’s any point in their asking questions just to annoy us if we simply refuse to be annoyed.
Technically, if our anscestors were proto-monkeys way up in the trees and now we’re on the ground, “descended” is correct usage… 
Darwin called his theory “Descent with modification” and rejected the notion that there was some ultimate goal or “perfection” that this process was acheiving. Darwin considered the process value-neutral.
The terms “evolution,” “survival of the fittest,” and the idea that biological processes produce a “goal” which is morally and biologically superior in humanity came from Herbert Spenser, who was a philosopher more than a biologist. To say that Spencer and Darwin disagreed on this point is to put it mildly.
It is perfectly correct to say that we descended (with modification) from a nonhuman primate. As others have noted “descendent” is a term used in English to describe a person’s offspring. “Ascendent” is not similarly used. We are the children of the children (&cetera) of our common ancestor, thus, descendents.