# Human evolution from apes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [November 7, 2017, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-evolution-from-apes/800942 "2017-11-07T03:28:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2017, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-evolution-from-apes/800942/41 "2017-11-16T04:23:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’d go with the last one. The ability to breed and produce fertile offspring is the central hallmark of a species. So if an individual animal from today would be able to produce such offspring with an individual animal from a hundred million years ago, I’d say they both belong to a single unchanged species. Questionable. There are existing separate species that _could_ interbreed, but in fact, don’t, for various reasons. If you start blurring those boundaries to try to blur species lines across evolutionary time, then the whole species concept starts to cause issues. After all, even if I couldn’t interbreed with a female of that common ancestor species if I went back in time, she and I are connected by a chain of intermediate individuals who could each breed with the individuals before and after them in that chain. Where in that long line of infinitesimally different creatures is the line where the lineage crossed over into _homo sapiens_? (Or _homo erectus_, or _australopithecus africanus_, etc.?) The concept is useful if you leave it restricted in time and space. Tigers and lions are separate species because they don’t interbreed under natural conditions; lions live in Africa and tigers live in Asia, so they don’t get within range to reproduce with each other. And they’re both different species than their most recent common ancestor, which neither of them breed with because it went extinct probably a million or two years before either of them evolved. These are true facts, notwithstanding that bringing individuals of these three species together somehow (eg. by ship in the case of lions and tigers, or a hypothetical time machine in the case of either of them and their ancestor species) could possibly result in offspring. (Well, definitely in the case of lions and tigers, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2017, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-evolution-from-apes/800942/42 "2017-11-16T12:29:14Z")
There is also the concept of [ring species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species). And similarly, dog breeds. While Saint Bernards and chihuahuas aren’t likely to directly breed with each other and produce Saint Bewawas, St.Bs can breed with slightly smaller dogs and chihuahuas can breed with slightly larger dogs, and those viable offspring can breed with similar sized dogs and so on, so theoretically in a mixed population of dog breeds there can be gene flow between Saint Bernards and chihuahuas and both breeds still count as being the same species. But if you eliminated every dog breed except for St.Bs and chihuahuas _while making no change to St.Bs and chihuahuas themselves_, suddenly it becomes completely reasonable to call them separate species because they would be likely to remain reproductively isolated from each other in nature. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2017, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-evolution-from-apes/800942/43 "2017-11-16T16:50:36Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > No, the thinking is that humans and apes have a common ancester. Anyone who thinks humans evolved from apes is kinda dumb. (And I’m probably being nice.) > Where were they supposed to go exactly? Why should they leave? > > [Snip] > > Seems to me you have a serious misunderstanding of evolution. I could argue you have a misunderstanding as well. Yes, humans evolved from _apes_, because the last common ancestor between humans and other Great Apes was also an ape, and the common ancestor between the great apes and lesser apes was also an ape. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > The simplest rebuttal I’ve heard to the OP’s question is “Well, Americans descended from Europeans. Why are there still Europeans?” I like the great-grandparent analogy. Cousin Bob and you are both descended from great-grandad Ernie and great-grandma Evelyn. Bob and Evelyn are both dead, how come Bob still exists? You are not descended from Bob, just like humans are not descended from modern chimpanzees. However, it is likely that the common ancestor would be considered a type of chimpanzee, just like bonobos are a closely related species many casually refer to as a species of chimps. > [@septimus](#): > > Nitpick. Some say humans _are_ apes. (I descend from an ape – my grandfather!) Wikipedia shows this phylogeny: > Superfamily Hominoidea (Apes) > Family Hominidae (Great Apes) > Subfamily Homininae (Gorilla and Hominini) > If Homo isn’t Ape, it’s the only genus in Hominini, Homininae, Hominidae, or Hominoidea which isn’t. It’s possible “ape” is a non-phylogenic clade, but it is cleaner and simpler to just include Homo. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’d go with the last one. The ability to breed and produce fertile offspring is the central hallmark of a species. So if an individual animal from today would be able to produce such offspring with an individual animal from a hundred million years ago, I’d say they both belong to a single unchanged species. Already addressed in part, but I want to expand. This is an area where even evolution supporters often have misconceptions. There really is no set thing as a “species” - all species are population groups that vary in genetic makeup over time. Sometimes those population clusters are fairly stable over time - witness the horseshoe crab and the coelacanth. But population genetics change due to location, climate change, and time. When we take a snapshot in time we see a certain group here and a certain group there and say they are the same or they are different. But going back in time, we can trace two different groups to a single population. That population may closely resemble one or both groups, but it may also have distinct differences from both. My thought provoker is the "chicken and the egg "problem. Partially it is a semantics problem - is a chicken such because it comes from a chicken egg, but is a chicken egg such because it is laid by a chicken? Let’s consider that the first chicken came from an egg laid by a bird that was one mutation away from being a chicken. However you want to define that line. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2017, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-evolution-from-apes/800942/44 "2017-11-16T21:24:42Z")
From our point of view, the most recent common ancestor of chimps and humans would probably look more chimp-like than human-like… but our point of view is biased. We tend to focus on differences rather than similarities. But a chimp looking at the same ancestor might well say “well that’s obviously not a chimp. It’s more human-like”. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-evolution-from-apes/800942/45 "2017-11-17T15:42:02Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > I like the great-grandparent analogy. Cousin Bob and you are both descended from great-grandad Ernie and great-grandma Evelyn. Bob and Evelyn are both dead, how come Bob still exists? You are not descended from Bob, just like humans are not descended from modern chimpanzees. Erm, did you mean _Ernie_ and Evelyn are both dead? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-evolution-from-apes/800942/46 "2017-11-17T16:01:50Z")
Two chimpanzees are in a compound in a zoo. One of them is reading Darwin with rapt interest, which he then tries to explain to his fellow chimp. The other chimp asks him in amazement: “You mean — I’m my keeper’s brother?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-evolution-from-apes/800942.md?page=2)