Misunderstanding Evolution

The other day a friend of mine posted a meme on Facebook that said “Religion–pics or it didn’t happen.” Haha, pretty funny. But then another person commented something that really annoyed me. Now I do not know the person and I did not feel like getting into a debate with him because if he is some Young Earth Creationist or Fundamentalist Christian, facts will not change his mind at all. So here is the comment:

I want to focus on the bit about bonobos and Cro-Magnon. At the same time, someone else posted a meme that said about things that make no sense and one of them was “how come if we evolved from monkeys, there are still monkeys?” This is a basic misunderstanding of how evolution works. Allow me to explain…well probably not enough time. Allow me to sum up.

Scientists are not searching for a transitional species between bonobos and humans (I am sure some of you are confused about bonobos–they are similar to chimpanzees, and along with them are our closest relatives). Instead, scientists are fairly certain that the common ancestor to the three was probably around 6 million years ago. That means at some point, six million years ago, there was animal in Africa that slowly evolved into separate species (maybe because of environmental differences in certain regions). One branch became bonobos/chimps and the other became humans (starting first with Australopithecus, then eventually the genus Homo.

I think the reason people assume that evolution means a straight line progression is due to the old evolution image we always see of a monkey progressing to a modern human (there is a caveman in there, and a less advanced looking human, etc). However, this is not how evolution works. There is no end goal of evolution. Species evolve due to natural selection. This means that what species is best adapted to their environment at the time will reproduce more and survive (I know, this is a very simple explanation, sorry).

Want to see a more accurate representation of evolution? Look at this simple mammal evolution chart.

It is messy, it is convoluted, and it has no end goal. Mammals all came from some common ancestor and from there we have elephants, lemurs, bats, pandas, bunnies, and rats. So please, stop saying this stupid stuff about evolution not being real because there are still monkeys. Also, stop acting like Darwin invented evolution. He did not. Most biologists and naturalists in his time believed in evolution. They were debating the mechanism that caused evolution. Darwin is responsible for evolution by way of natural selection. There were other theories back then and earlier (like Lamarck’s theory).

Also, back to that original comment. I have no clue what he it trying to say about radiocarbon dating. C-14 has a half-life of about 5730 years, so you measure the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 (it is fairly complex and I am not about to explain the whole thing. You can look it up yourself). Anyways, if he is trying to say that scientists use this method to date things older than is possible, then he is mistaken. There are other dating methods for items older than 50,000 years (such as potassium-argon).

Finally, this person seems to think that science claims to know everything. That is just not true. Science is about knowledge. Scientists never claim to have all the answers, they seek to learn them, but they would never claim to have everything all figured out.

Okay, rant over. Go about your day.