How many, according to you, believe that man descended from the apes?

Smithsonian Institution 2 Million is a good guess, for our group.

5 million years.

To my knowledge, we are indeed the direct descendants of primates. Who cares?

Not enough of us believe in evolution.

Given the option of thinking humans evolved directly from the same kind of apes that exist today OR in believing that the first two humans (ya know, A&E) magically appeared on Earth at the whim of a space god (he a narcissistic exercise in self imagery and she a literal extension of him, thus rendering her subservient and the cause of original sin) from whom every single subsequent human came…hmmmm, I’ll take the ape misunderstanding.

That can be fixed with a bit of education.

We emerged from a primordial soup as single called animals. Eventually we evolved into worms followed by fish. Then into mammal-like reptiles. Then into small mammals. Then into apes. We are still apes.

Yes, humans and modern-day apes evolved from a common ape-like primate ancestor. This is often reduced by detractors into “humans didn’t come from monkeys”, but “come from monkeys” isn’t really an accurate description of human evolution.

To my knowledge, we are indeed the direct descendants of primates

And we still are primates.

@luigirovatti How many, according to you, believe that man descended from the apes?

Over half.

I don’t know the number of deniers but I know it’s disturbingly high and discouraging when I’ve seen it. Evolution is not something you believe in, it is something you understand.

I “believe in ” science and the fact is, humans and apes had a common ancestor on the evolutionary spectrum. The error is humans descended “from apes”. The fact is both humans and apes have a common ancestor.

I know one of 2 things to be true either:

1. Humans descended from a common primate ancestor of modern day apes,

or

2. There is a creator who did everything in his/her power to deceive everyone into making it appear that 1. was true. That’s a pretty fucked up thing for a creator to do, and I certainly wouldn’t respect one that behaved in that manner.

@gorillapaws But your paws!

Yes, I believe in evolution.
I also believe in God and believe he set everything in motion to begin with and the story of Adam and Eve may just have been the story of the first man and woman who were more human than ape.
I’ve actually knew Priest who believed in both as well.

But there was no single set of a man and a woman being human, like, just out of the blue. Their parents and grandparents (on back for thousands of years) were just as human as they, and a few other million hominids were at the time.

@Call_Me_Jay I agree. I’ve never liked the framing of evolution in terms of belief or those who attempt to mitigate it by saying it’s “just a theory”. Yes, it’s a “just a theory” like gravity is “just a theory”. It’s a model that accounts for the present evidence. You can accept or not accept it, but framing it in terms of belief makes it sound like a matter of faith, i.e. that the empirical evidence is not there or not important, when that is not the case.

@Pandora That’s more or less what my mom believes and she’s a Catholic. One can accept the theory of evolution and believe in God. They are not mutually exclusive.

There’s no evidence that all life, on Earth, didn’t evolve from the same basic beginnings of life. Single cell organisms.

I honestly don’t understand why the concept, is offensive.

It offends some people because God was supposed to make us humans “special.” In His image. There is nothing special about a bipedal primate. They’re just animals like every other animal.

^^ Exactly. You could say some believers in the specialness of humans might go ape at the suggestion.

As others have mentioned. Man did not descend from apes.
The great apes and hominids evolved from a common ancestor, and then the monkeys before that.

And it isn’t “according to me”. It is established scientific fact. It is as established as gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, and anthropogenic global warming.

@Pandora I’ve actually knew Priest who believed in both as well.

I was taught the science of evolution in Catholic schools.

@Strauss You and me both. But as I recalled in school they taught it but never tried to link it to God having created evolution. Also, our science teachers were never Nuns nor were they some sort of Deacon. I remember asking a science teacher once and was told to take it up in our religion course class which was usually a nun. And when I did, they would only say they don’t deal in science but faith. But I remember visiting with our former head Priest who was assigned to a Catholic College and in his office he had a library and I saw a lot of books on science. So we had a long conversation about religion and science.

I went to a high-school level seminary for a couple years, and for the rest I was in a Catholic boy’s high school. Both were operated by priests and brothers, and both had a philosophy of seeing God’s work in science.

I remember how hard religion fought against science and evolution, coming up with all kinds of ridiculous ways to explain dino bones away. They finally realized it wasn’t working and were almost force to accept evolution….and then, of course, they put God in charge of it. SMH.

@Strauss, I’m curious. about what state you attended Catholic School? The reason I ask is because I went to Catholic School in NYC, and I found as I moved around there is a difference within the Catholic Church in other states. It may be that I just had bad luck in meeting a decent Priest but I have never found another Priest like the ones in NYC. I thought they were friendlier and able to debate faith without getting twisted in a knot because they believe that the bible is meant to guide us, not actually be taken in the literal sense. Like for example, plucking out your eyes if you sin with your eyes.

Funny thing. A few years back my nephew was baptized and the Priest was on vacation so one from NYC came down. Talking to him for 5 minutes it felt like home. People thought we knew each other because I could easily joke with him. I told them those were the kind of Priest I grew up knowing. The ones who knew how to talk to anyone and make them feel welcomed. It’s been years since I’ve gone to a church and found someone like that.

But getting back to my point. I think there are different factions of Priest within the Catholic Church.

Think the time frame may have something to do with the difference as well. I attended the regular Catholic high school my freshman year, and was in the seminary for two years, then returned to the “outside” school to graduate. During the time I was in the seminary the “Vatican Council” occurred, which meant many sweeping changes in the Church. I graduated in 1966 (yeah, way back then). During the late sixties and early seventies the Church seemed to be more liberal, with things like ecuminisn, liberation theology, and allowing much more progressive thought in interpretation of doctrine and dogma. Starting around the late seventies and early eighties there seemed to be a pendulum swing toward a more conservative and dogmatic interpretation of what it means to be Catholic.

Not me, too much Biology education.

You don’t accept the evidence for evolution @LogicHead? Do you believe that God went down to the tank, mixed him up some mud and made him a man? (Also, no need to capitalize “biology.” It’s not a proper noun.)