Has the so called missing link where man came from ape been found? Why are apes still around after perfect selection?

There was never really any link missing, or there will always be some links missing, depending on how you look at it. Obviously we aren’t going to find a fossil for every individual year of human existence. 🙂

But we have a pretty complete progression at this point. We have a good idea of which species was our direct ancestor.

It was this one:

What, that’s not an ape, you say? Well, of course not. Human evolution, like the evolution of any animal, has many steps. Species radiate into two or more different species, and change over time. That’s what evolution is. Homo heidelbergensisthere, he wasn’t just our ancestor — he was also the ancestor of Homo neanderthalensis (with which we hybridized, when we left Africa).

So who was Homo heidelbergensis’ ancestor? Probably this fellow:

Homo antecessor there evolved into Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis. Still definitely not an ape. But also not much like us… look at that small brain case!

Homo erectus was the first species to use fire.

So what species evolved into Homo antecessor? This girl here.

Well, now we’re looking just a bit less human, aren’t we? But she’s still in genus Homo. This is Homo habilis. Still human, but definitely not in our league for smarts.

But the point is, there wasn’t just one human species. There were many different human species, quite of few of them living at the same time. Let’s wind the clock back further, and skip a few:

Meet Australopithecus afarensis. Australopithecines were the genus to which the ancestors of genus Homo belonged. And A. afarensis was probably the ancestor that eventually radiated and evolved into the first members of genus Homo. She looks very ape-like, doesn’t she? But she was a biped. She walked upright, just as we do.

Back further we go. Ardipithecus ramidus. Likely the ancestor of Australopithecines. Bipedal, but very chimp-like in other respects.

But what you’re really looking for is this guy:

Orrorin tugenensis. This species either is, or is related to, one of our earliest ancestors, just after the split between chimps and homonins. It shows some changes to the femur to allow bipedal walking, but was likely also spending a lot of time in the trees, just as chimps do. We aren’t sure whether this species spent all of its time walking bipedally, or also knuckled-walked as apes do.

So, why are apes still around? What you’re missing is understanding of a part of evolution called radiation. Radiation is when two or more new species evolve from a single ancestor.

For example, some tribes of Homo heidelbergensis traveled out of Africa into Europe, while other stayed behind. The ones that left were subjected to very different environmental conditions. This influenced their evolution, and they became Homo neanderthalensis.

The tribes that stayed behind in Africa, on the other hand, were subjected to quite a different climate and influences, and they evolved into Homo sapiens.

The same thing happened with homonins and apes. Some ape troops left the forest environment to forage on the savannah, as climates and ecosystems shifted. The ones that left the forest evolved to become bipedal, and spent most of their time on the ground — eventually evolving into us.

The ones that stayed behind into forests evolved into chimpanzees and bonobos.

We haven’t found a fossil of the last common ancestor between homonins and chimps, yet, but the progression is clear enough that we can make educated guesses about what it looked like. One thing you need to remember is that evolution never stops. All species are evolving, all the time. We don’t have a chimpanzee for an ancestor — a chimpanzee is just as evolved as we are. It’s evolved to become a chimpanzee. And it’s evolved from the same ancestor WE had, when you go far enough back.

Likewise, chimps and humans didn’t evolve from gorillas. Gorillas are also just as evolved as we are. But they evolved from an ancestor that radiated — one branch leading to gorillas, and the other leading to us and chimps.

And so on, all the way back.

There are transitional fossils leading from all of these common ancestors to the modern species that evolved from them. The picture becomes more clear every year.

I hope this helps in understanding how evolution works, and how our species evolved.

Evolution isn’t a ladder to be climbed. It doesn’t have a goal. It doesn’t perfect species. It’s simply about change — changes over time as a result of life, death, and breeding. That’s all.

(By the way, you may see on the chart that we have 23 pairs of chromosomes, instead of 24. This is because two of our chromosomes fused together, creating one abnormally long chromosome. We found that one, so we’ve verified that it happened, and know which two chromosomes fused).

Alec Cawley

Avid reader in Evolution, but in no way qualified.

3w ago

There never was a “missing link”. That was always a misunderstanding about the fossil record. The fossil record will always have gaps – only one in billions of creatures leave fossils. When the Theory of Natural Selection was first proposed, the fossil record was far less complete than it is now for all species, including man. Some doubters picked on the largest gap then known between human-like apes and ape-like humans and declared it a special “missing link”. It never was a spacial gap, and in the 150 years since then we have found perhaps half a dozen intermediate fossils. So we have converted one missing link into half a dozen missing links, and the more intermediate fossils we find, the more missing links we have.

Why are there still apes when humans descended from apes? Why are there still Europeans when Americans descended from Europeans (and Africans, and Asians)?

Species are continually splitting. If a new opportunity arises, a species will expand to occupy it. After a while, thee ones who have moved into the new space will evolve and become a new species. But they don’t all move – some will remain behind in the old habitat. After all, life is good there – they have adapted to it.

When a group of apes moved out of the forest onto the open plains, they left their cousins behind in the forest. Because their environment had changed, the ones who had moved to the plains changed – evolved – a lot. The ones left behind changed less (but not nothing),

Evolution is a constant repetition of species splitting, and species going extinct. Very rarely does a species develop smoothly without splitting into groups – and if it looks like that, it is probably just an artifact of the fossil record. It is very difficult for a species to stand still over million hears. It either grows and splits, or shrinks and disappears.

Noam Ben-Ami

22 years as an engineer, founder, and engineering manager

3w ago

Not this again. Jesus.

There is no such thing as a “missing link”: Evolution is a gradual process, therefore all fossils are transitional. And there are easily found lists of transitional fossils that you can trivially google in ten seconds. Start with the smithsonian’s collection. Look, I even gave you the link.

The term “perfect selection” is meaningless. Selection is not perfect or imperfect. It merely is.

Humans are apes. We evolved from a previous species of apes. So did all the other ape species. We share a common ancestor with ALL living beings if you trace the branches of the evolutionary tree far enough.

Claire Jordan

works at Carer

3w ago

The problem is not that we don’t have an intermediate linking fossil species but that we have dozens, and without DNA samples it’s not possible to tell which are our direct ancestors and which our cousins.

Poodles are descended from spaniels. Do you wonder why there are still spaniels? It’s because only a small number of spaniels where bred into poodles, and being a spaniel is just as good and useful as being a poodle, but for slightly different tasks.

Similarly some family lines of ancestral apes became humans, and some became modern non-human apes (because humans are also apes). Chimps and gibbons aren’t some kind of failed human, they’re just as advanced as us but adapted for slightly different lifestyles.

Frank Taeger

Organizational Psychologist, with background in psychometrics. Also pretty smart

3w ago

There is no such thing as “perfect selection.”

Environmental pressures and variables lead to natural, group and sexual forms of selection of traits. Sometimes, groups get separated, move to other environments, the environments change etc.

Thus, several traits develop. Since there is no such thing as infinite testing and non changing environments, different traits can develop in the same environment or from the same starting point in other environments.

There is no such thing as a completely linear record of things, rather a ton of things happened over time creating many not so linear lines of species that we see today, interacting and shaping the environment, while the environment shaped them.

There is generally no such thing as a “Missing Link”. This word tends to be used by alternative speaker arguing for transitional fossils or connecting link fossils.

These are “missing” in a sense in that they have likely existed and show transitional species with more or less certain characteristics from a former and a later species. Generally speaking, we all are transitional organisms, since we bear certain rudimentary characteristics that are not useful for us, but have been before. Our spine, as an example, is hilariously badly designed for walking straight, but well, we have it, nothing we can do about it right now.

So, even though humans and apes have common ancestors, we are not apes and didn’t evolve from Gorillas. Gorillas and humans rather have had a common ancestor at some point.

Andre Ouellette

Over 40 Years of Martial Arts Experience (1974-present)

3w ago

This tired old argument again?

Can’t creationists ever try to learn anything?

Here we go… again:

1- There is no such thing as a missing link. Humans do not come from apes. Humans ARE apes. We are hominids, a distinct species of apes of which there is only one currently existing representative: Homo sapiens sapiens; us.

Evolution is a slow, gradual process of modification through descent. You have just as much chance of finding a so-called missing link than to pinpoint the one day where you biologically stopped being a kid and turned into an adult.

Humans and the other apes came from a common ancestor, not from one another and certainly not from any current ape species existing today. This has been all factually traced back through the fossil record, taxonomy and genetics.

Only creationists look for a crocoduck as their proof of EVILution… and finding one would actually disprove evolution!

That’s how willfully ignorant too many creationists are.

2- Evolution does not require extinction. As long as a species can meet environmental pressure adequately, it will continue to exist, even if there are more prosperous species alongside. The planet is large enough to accommodate even competing species. The shark appeared around 400 millions years ago just like the coelacanth and yet they still both exist today, among all the other later fish species that followed.

This argument is as asinine as asking: since Americans are all descendants of Europeans, why are there still Europeans?

3- What the heck is “perfect selection?” This last bit is complete nonsense.

Natural selection is an observable phenomena in nature.

Perfection is a subjective estimate of the state of something.

There is no correlation here.

Since life is also observable as an ever changing process of existence of organic constructs in an ever changing universe of matter, energy and spacetime, then perfection is and illusory concept, especially unrelated to the reality of life, except in one chosen specific frame of that continuum under a limited set of subjective criteria.

In other words, “perfect selection” is meaningless.

Really, creationists must update themselves instead of ranting and ridiculing themselves with arguments debunked decades, sometimes even centuries ago!

A good start would be to go to actual legitimate science sources instead of religious fundamentalist propaganda websites and unthinkingly parrot them.

Drake Way

Advocate of science and critical thinking.

3w ago

Literally hundreds of ‘missing links’ have been found. The term hasn’t been applicable in science for decades. You might as well be asking for proof fire exists at this point.

As for your second question, the question makes no sense. If a population splits into two, and goes their separate ways, each evolving in different directions, for different reasons, why so you assume that one of those populations must die off? Perfect selection isn’t a tenet of the theory of evolution, so why do you think this would ever qualify as a valid criticism? That’s like asking ‘If America started as an English Colony, why is there still England?’

Evolution is the theory that explains the diversity of life. Pointing to the diversity of life as a counter argument exposes nothing about the theory of evolution, except the lack of education and complacency of the complanent.

Gloria Cole

Anthropology UCSB, San Diego State, University of Kentucky

3w ago

Has the so called missing link where man came from ape been found? Why are apes still around after perfect selection?

Primate evolution is discussed here: The First Primates

First of all there are no “missing links” or “perfect selection.

What we find instead of “missing links” are ancestral populatons that split or branch in succeeding generations: prosimians split into new and old world monkeys. The fossil evidence are Proconsul species who lived between 21 and 14 million years, 15 million years ago we have Dryopithecene apes whose population split between gorillas and another line at 8 to 9 million years ago leading to the population that be came chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans. Humans split off from this line of apes at 7 million years ago.

Yes there are still gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos as well as ourselves all of which descended from that line of dryopithecine apes. We did not descend from chimpanzees. Chimps, bonobos and our selves all share a common ancestor. That’s why the extant apes are still here. The common ancestor is not.

Finally there is no such thing as “perfect selection”. Natural selection is always “just good enough” to ensure continuation of the species.

I hope this discussion clarifies things a bit for you.