EVOLUTION | Why Are There Still Monkeys? | BRITLAB

so this is a question we hear a lot if evolution says that humans descended from monkeys then why are there still monkeys the argument goes like this you've seen this pic right it clearly shows that monkeys evolved into humans so if we won in this survival of the fittest battle then how come I can go to the zoo and see monkeys um yeah okay the problem is that this famous image tells you as much about evolution as transformers does about robotics I want to knock this argument down blow-by-blow first up evolution evolution is the way that life-forms change and that change is slow it happens over generations and generations also that change that evolution happens do populations not individuals its generations of populations that evolved second up natural selection natural selection is a scientific explanation for how we think those life-forms have changed in a nutshell life is hard in a slightly bigger nutshell within a population you get variation think about a population of finches some of them are going to have fatter beak some of them are going to have pointy beaks whatever now say those birds spread out onto other islands on one of the islands life is hard because the available food is lovely worming things inside a tree the birds with the pointy beaks can get there more they eat more they get stronger they breed more and that genetically determined beat shape becomes more common in the next generation on another Island there might be nuts with it with a thick shell so it's birds with a bigger beak that can crack them open get the food eat it get stronger breed more and that genetically determined beat shape gets more common in the next generation in each niche one type of beak is more suitable and gets naturally selected for so what you've got is populations changing through the generations evolving driven by the process of natural selection so back to the question of if evolution exists why are there still monkeys first things first and I will come back to this later never you fear but the word monkey isn't very useful when talking about all this sort of stuff so I'm going to use chimpanzee for now and this picture makes it look like evolution is linear that one species evolves into another falls into another evolves into another this is not what happened with humans and chimps instead humans and chimps became different species in another way sometime in the past before there were humans or chimps there was another species let's call it species X now we don't know exactly what that last common ancestor species was or when it lived estimates vary between 6 and 12 million years ago but at some point that species split into two then each one followed its own evolutionary path one of them led to Homo sapiens that's us and the other one led to the Pan troglodytes the common chimpanzee we say species X was the last common ancestor of chimps and humans so actually its species X that isn't around anymore whereas chimps and humans still are this mates chimps more like our evolutionary cousins than our evolutionary grandparents we didn't descend from them both of us descended from species X this is an example of how species evolved by branching and it's what causes the incredible biodiversity that amazing range of life-forms that we have on our planet today so there you have it that's why humans and chimps are both still around oh and before I go I should probably explain the monkeys thing too there's a really good fact in this as well so we can extend the tree out to include the rest of the Apes and the primates to the primates are a much bigger group they've got the Apes and also the lemurs the monkeys etc and the primates of one single biological group because they evolved from one single common ancestor the monkeys aren't one single biological group you've got the old-world monkeys and you've got the new world monkeys grouping them together from an evolutionary point of view would be like putting the guerrillas and the orangutangs together in their own special group and calling them orangutans and here's that cool fact that I promised the common ancestor of primates spit off into the wet-nosed primates which includes lemurs and the dry nosed primates which includes monkeys and apes somewhere along this branch the dry nose primates wear now include us lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C which is why we need vitamin C in our diets otherwise we'll get scurvy the wet-nosed primates never lost that ability so they don't need vitamin C in their diet it's why you'll never see a lemur with scurvy so there you go that's the heads-up on evolution natural selection our links to chimps and monkeys and why I think it's totally fine for you to go to the zoo and make the oranges off the lemurs you need them more see you soon

Channel: BBC Earth Science

Views: 125,006

Keywords: Head, Squeeze, Evolution (Quotation Subject), Monkey (Animal), Greg Foot, Science, Question, Creationism (Religion), Why Do Monkey's Still Exist, homo sapiens, Natural Selection (Literature Subject), Branching, Humans, Chimps, apes, BRITLAB, BRIT LAB

Id: TlNLT_qy4F0

Length: 5min 3sec (303 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 13 2014