Umm.. evolution doesn’t mean that they just stop existing. Think of evolution like a tree, not a rope. One branch can lead to another, but that doesn’t mean that the original branch is gone. Monkeys don’t cease to exist just because humans evolve from them.

What allie said, with one correction. We didn’t evolve from monkeys, we evolved from chimpanzees (so the question should read, “why are there still chimps?”). I also fail to see how understanding the scientific principles behind evolution somehow marks and/or converts you into an atheist.

Thanks, Allie, and shilolo. Are there any other good examples of animals that evolved, but the original remained?
@shilolo, I don’t think it would mark or convert me as an atheist, I just wanted to avoid any trolls thinking that understanding of one theory means denial of another… “If you understand evolution, how can you claim you’re a Christian?”

Its not a manner of a straight line, its a manner of branches. We aren’t directly descended from any modern animal. We split off and are cousins of other modern apes.

jholler. You miss the point, a bit. We are kind of like distant cousins. Anyway, a good place to learn more in lay terms is from Olivia Judson’s blog in the New York Times (she’s hot, to boot).

To answer your question, I can think of many, but here is a short list:
1. Dogs, from wolves.
2. Domestic cats and cheetahs, leopards, etc.
3. Many bacteria, from other bacteria
4. Many domesticated fruit

Mmmm. I love her.

Cool…so why, when a species adapts and evolves in response to needs for survival or other environmental influences, would the original species remain intact? I sort of understand domesticated animals, but what about natural evolution? In the study of Galapagos finches on Olivia Judson’s blog for instance (interesting, btw!) did finches with original beak size remain, or did they all evolve?

Dude. If you have a kid with blue eyes, does the entire population suddenly get blue eyes?

The original species doesn’t, if its in the same place.
The finches went to a different environment. Imagine you have an island of rabbits. The rabbits get spread out so that there is a group in each environment/island. One of these islands has a really really aggressive hawk population, so over time the only rabbits that survive to reproduce are those who are hardest for the hawks to see. On another island you don’t have any hawks, but you have hungry wolves. These hungry wolves will eat all but the fastest. Only the fastest survive to reproduce. One of these islands is really hot, so only the rabbits who can deal with the heat the best/have the least undercoat will be healthiest and appealing for reproduction.

After a million generations of rabbits pass, you bring the offspring back together and compare. You still have the original rabbits from the first island. You have really camoflauged rabbits from the hawk island. Rabbits who have really long legs and are super muscular from the wolf island. And really big and naked rabbits from the hot island.

This is a VERY simplified explanation. I have a feeling that your understanding of what evolution is is flawed. This is a better picture.

To apply this to the real world, all of these things happen at once and there has to be an available niche in the environment for that animal. Its not just about death, its about being the healthiest or prettiest. The best creatures get the best mates. Their ideal genetics get passed on.

(BTW, I am aware that hawks don’t see like that and so on, but hush you… its an analogy.)

@delirium,
that made it click…it sometimes takes a little longer than it used to. I’m still finding out how much. Thanks.

@shilolo- We didn’t evolve from chimpanzees. We evolved from ape-like hominids. The whole creationist argument of why we haven’t found a missing link is flawed because we didn’t evolve from the apes, we evolved along side them from a common ancestor.

When you are talking about the finches, you are talking about a fairly modern event and therefore a limited selection. If you look at something with more history you might think of elephants, mastodons and whales which all came from a common ancestor that has not survived. This connection goes back 100’s of thousands of years. But the history of plant and animals goes back 100 million years or more.

Also domesticated plants and animals are examples of artificial selection not natural selection so cannot really be compared scientifically.

There are different types of evolution.. it’s finals week, I’ve been studying for 8 hours straight, and I just don’t have the brainpower to explain at the moment. I can explain better tomorrow, if no one’s beaten me to the punch.

If I remember correctly, humans evolving from ape-like hominids (not chimps) is an example of divergent evolution.

Divergent evolution

Don’t worry about it, JH. There are differing complexities to everything. If you only see the really massive insanely complex math equations, you say “Math is impossible!” but if you learn it from the bottom up, you can figure anything out. :)

Also, if I can note: There is nothing that makes me happier than someone who is honestly asking a question about evolution. The loaded questions are the ones that bother me. If a person is honestly wondering… that’s really neat and I totally respect that.

Great discussion…interesting, informative and respectful!

Monkeys, chimps, gorillas and the like are just as evolved in their own way as we are – they just became better suited for their environments and we to ours. They didn’t get “left behind” at all.

I feel we’ve all come as far as we can so let’s all make a concerted effort to de-evolve.

Some people have already started, AC.

Note: Darwin awards.

A note about Darwin’s finches.. it’s not just that they went to a different environment, though the different islands do offer different ecosystems, and that does help in terms of adaptive evolution. Island habitats are very unique; take a look at Hawai’i and Oceania (New Zealand and Australia). You’ll find the highest amount of species diversity on an island than on a piece of continent of the same size in area.

The reason for this is that competition is a lot more of a pressing influence, because there are limited resources. So, if you have many finches vying for a limited amount of seeds or habitat, there is a lot of pressure and competition. What happened is that some of the finches gradually switched to different foods because of competition for food resources, which gradually lead to some striking morphological differences, most notably their beaks, which, in birds, are specialized to a particular food source (seeds, insects, nectar, etc.).

I’m not an atheist, I consider myself religious and spiritual, and I do hold some beliefs about a higher power. On the flip side, I am a biologist and I find the facts to be very convincing. Just some food for thought, who’s to say that God and evolution are mutually exclusive? Perhaps our timeline or interpretation of the Bible is off (we are fallible humans, after all). Perhaps God or some higher power set the ball in motion and evolution is a product of a grander plan.

I spent a year in a French Catholic high school, where periodically, we had speakers from various religions come to class. I asked the Catholic priest about how he would explain evolution, given that it’s becoming increasingly obvious that it does and has happened. His answer? That God gathered the energy to create life on Earth, and just got things going so they could run their intended course.

So, personally, I don’t think religion should have to be at odds with evolution. If evolution is real, then perhaps we have to adjust our thinking in terms of faith and religion.

Sorry this is long, but you asked for a “good” answer.

Speciation is just one convenient but arbitrary cutoff point in evolution. A general but somewhat flawed definition is that species can breed with one another and produce viable offspring…so if they can’t breed they are different species.

Evolution includes any change in (allele) gene frequencies within a population. So for instance. In Australia they released a virus called myxamatosis in the 1950s to kill rabbits. This killed the vast majority of the population (around 500,000,000!). But not all. Those that survived in the 1950s are the ancestors of the current population, which as you would predict are mostly resistant to myxamatosis. This is evolution without speciation. The current population is a specialized subset of survivors from the populations that occured in the 1950s, but are not a different species.

(SELECTION PRESSURE) So the first point is about selection presure. If something selects for or against some aspect in the population, then the population changes in the frequencies that certain genes occur through the fabouring one some individuals and the failure of others. Their relative difference in reproductive success alters the frequency of genes found in future populations (natural selection). So as environments change, species can change through time. Or if some individuals like the appearance of the opposite sex which has certain distinct features, then the populations can evolve and or diverge through this selection pressure (sexual selection).

(GENERATIONS) Regarding selection pressures and environmental change….If we could shook hands today with each of our ancestors, going back one generation each time, we would eventually shake hands with an individual that was no longer the same species as we are because different selection pressures had changed their genome to the point that we couldn’t reproduce if we wanted to.

(ISOLATION) If isolation occurs that separates one population of the same species from another, then the different environments are likely to push the two separated populations in two different directions. If this gets extreme enough then they may not be able to breed with each other, which ensures that they can diverge more (because they no longer mix their genes). This is why humans did not descend from chimpanzees, because at some point around 6 million years ago humans were not humans, and chimps were not chimps. We both shared a common ancestor that we both descended from. New world monkeys and humans share a common ancestor from about 40 million years ago.

The more generations you go back to find a common ancestor, the more change. This is how we get what we refer to as families or classes or kingdoms etc…(eg. not only can they not interbreed, but they are so different that they require a classification that explains this difference…)

(MUTATION) A mistake during cell division can cause a change in the number of chromosomes. Instantly, the offspring may not be able to breed with the parent, but can breed with each other. In that case you can get a parent to give birth to what we refer to as a new species. Eg. a species of Corydalis (small plant) on Gotland in the Baltic exhibits this mutation…polyploidy.

So the end result is there are over 250 species of monkey around today because they have managed to successfully reproduce and adapt to the variety of different environments they inhabit. There are humans around today because we have done the same. At some point between 60 and 80 million years ago all surviving species of monkey and ape (eg. us) share a common ancestor.

There is nothing in this story which suggests that the existence of one speciesthat prevents their ancestors from successfully producing other lineages. If this was the case, the world would only contain a single species, because all extant species are thought to diverge from a common ancestor at some point in the past. You just have to go back far enough. I hope that helps.

P.S. Being a theist can prevent some people from accepting the evidence for evolution, but accepting the evidence for evolution does not make you an a-theist.

i’m definitely not an expert on evolution or any science in general, but from what i gather, the theory isn’t just that we were monkeys and POOF turned into people or whatever. we share a common ancestor. i don’t view evolution as a purely atheistic thing, i think it’s a scientific truth. i mean, it’s nothing religious. we change over millions of years to be better fit to the world we live in. i don’t think that goes against God. i guess i’m not providing a really great answer, but that’s my 2 cents.