[crail]

If we evolved from monkeys....

How come there are still monkeys?

From the Answers in Genesis (Creationist) website, on a page where they recommend against creationists using some of the really stupid arguments.

"‘If we evolved from apes, why are there still apes today?’ In response to this statement, some evolutionists point out that they don’t believe that we descended from apes, but that apes and humans share a common ancestor. However, the evolutionary paleontologist G.G. Simpson had no time for this ‘pussyfooting’, as he called it. He said, ‘In fact, that earlier ancestor would certainly be called an ape or monkey in popular speech by anyone who saw it. Since the terms ape and monkey are defined by popular usage, man’s ancestors were apes or monkeys (or successively both). It is pusillanimous [mean-spirited] if not dishonest for an informed investigator to say otherwise.’

However, the main point against this statement is that many evolutionists believe that a small group of creatures split off from the main group and became reproductively isolated from the main large population, and that most change happened in the small group which can lead to allopatric speciation (a geographically isolated population forming a new species). So there's nothing in evolutionary theory that requires the main group to become extinct. "
Bold mine.

[crail]

Crap, I shoulda put up a like to that site... for you creationists. Here are the arguments even creationists think are dumb: Arguments we think creationists should NOT use

Why do I keep seeing these arguments. The word from the top is don't use them if your a creationist.

[mlc9852]

How do you suppose they became isolated? If there are isolated tribes of humans say in the Andes, what are the chances they will devolve into monkeys? What about primates isolated in a deep forest somewhere - what would cause them to evolve into humans?

[xm177e2]

From the Answers in Genesis (Creationist) website, on a page where they recommend against creationists using some of the really stupid arguments.

LOL. You are too nice to them.

[WindOracle]

"However, the main point against this statement is that many evolutionists believe that a small group of creatures split off from the main group and became reproductively isolated from the main large population, and that most change happened in the small group which can lead to allopatric speciation (a geographically isolated population forming a new species). So there's nothing in evolutionary theory that requires the main group to become extinct. "

I can find nothing illogical in this idea whatsoever, it seems quite rational. but if anyone DOES see anything illogical about it, I would like to know what it is. Seems to me that if I have a large herd of any particular animal, then seperate a small part of them into a different cage, expose them over eons to much different stimulus and environment, as well as possible chemicals and radiation, and possible inbreeding due to isolation... enough mutation will take place to develop a new species seperate and unbreedable to the original species. Originally such mutations may be looked upon as birth defects.. but some birth defects, if the carrier of that gene breeds, become permanent changes in the DNA itself, and the first step to a new species.