In other words: we evolved from single-celled organisms, and yet there are still single-celled organisms around? 
Then they are flat out wrong and the person speaking is wholly ignorant of both evolution generally and primate history specifically.
Humans indisputably did evolve from monkeys, just not modern monkeys. We are far more closely related to the Old world monkeys than the Old World monkeys are to New World monkeys. Our last common ancestor with the Old World monkeys was, therefore, an Old World monkey in its own right.
The only other possible explanation is the ridiculous notion that monkeys evolved two times independently, with one non-monkey ancestor producing New World monkeys and the non-monkey, ancestor of ourselves and the Old World monkeys, and then that non-monkey ancestor producing our ancestor.
Since that is both statistically implausible and known to be incorrect based on genetics, we can say with absolute certainty that humans evolved from monkeys.
Not at all: you’re just using the word “monkey” to include that common ancestor, whereas the person you’re quoting isn’t. He’s using the word “monkey” to refer to the existing several species.
They aren’t “flat out wrong.” It is, rather, the conventional expression of the matter. We and chimpanzees evolved from a common ancestor. Far from showing ignorance, it’s showing basic formal comprehension.
So according to this person, Waldron’s red colobus isn’t a monkey, because it is extinct. In 1970, when it was alive, it was a monkey, but now he thinks it isn’t a monkey bcause monkey only refers to the existing species.
Which proves rather convincingly that anybody using the term monketyin this way is both flat out wrong and grossly ignorant.
“God said it, I believe it” is also a rather conventional expression of the matter. That doesn’t make it any less ignorant or incorrect.
Yes, and that common ancestor was an ape. Not a single scientist in the world disputes that fact. Hence we evolved from an ape.
And in exactly the same way, we and spider monkeys evolved from a common ancestor, and that ancestor was a monkey. And not a single scientist in the world disputes that fact. Hence we evolved from a monkey.
When your “comprehension” is in conflict with every scientist in the field, it’s not much a stretch to say that it is flat out wrong.
While it is arguably correct to say that we didn’t evolve from chimps, and it is certainly correct to say that we didn’t evolve from reptiles, it is indisputably wrong to say that we didn’t evolve from monkeys, or from apes. We have ancestors that were classified as monkeys, and as apes.
As to the second part of your question, the best answer I have seen to ‘How do species change’ is from, I believe, Dawkins, who stresses that major changes tend to occur over dramatically long periods. He proposes the thought experiment that require you to take a picture of yourself, your mother, your grandfather, your great grandfather etc, back through many millions of years, all the way through early primates, mammals, animals, plants etc to a one celled organism. Pile them up sequentially. He then points out that if you draw a few hundred (or a few thousand) photos from any section, and spread them out, the first one will look exactly like the last one in the series, yet you will not look like a one celled organism. The vast scale of time in evolution is incomprehensible to most people (and to evolution deniers particularly.)
Part of that is that they don’t allow for vast amounts of time. All they have time for is that limited selection of photos. It is for people like them that the punishment in Hitchhiker’s, where a person is exposed to the utter vastness of space and time, was invented.
In the strictest linquistic propriety, an extinct species “isn’t” anything. It “was,” but it certainly “isn’t.” The species ceased to exist in the 1970s. The common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees ceased to exist some hundreds of thousands of years ago. It also became extinct.
Nope. It’s simply using language precisely.
True. So what?
Yes…and no. You have to define exactly what the term means. Stephen Jay Gould explores this in the essay “What, if anything, is a Zebra.” Extending clades backwards to include extinct species is not absolutely universally accepted.
Again, you’re making assertions about language use, and that isn’t valid. There is no “scientific” way to determine if a group includes extinct species that are ancestral to the group, or even cladistically within the group. This is why we use prefixes such as “proto-” to describe ancestral species and groups.
I don’t believe you have established that in any way. You’re making some very blunt claims, but they are linguistic, not scientific.
This may be the current classification. But it is far from wrong to use the commonplace language, “We descended from a common ancestor.”
If this is wrong, then a great number of educational resources are wrong. Here’s an example. It’s in the first paragraph. Rather than to say, “They are wrong and grossly ignorant,” it’s fairly obvious that they’re using the terms differently than you are.
I would like to ask GIGObuster for an opinion here. If he says you’re right, I will defer to him. I believe he will be best able to describe the matter in both scientific and linguistic terms. I’ll also accept whatever Tomndebb might say.
Sorry, I need more experience on this subject or more time to check, so it is **Colibri *** the one I recommend to page.
Real biology expert.
Jabberwock
Angry cockatiels go for the throat.