Originally posted by AlwaysConfused
Um Hi, newbie and don't know why i chose this as my cherry popper, but I just want to know how long is it gonna take for the apes/chimps to evolve into humans? Since we evolved from them, shouldn't they evolve into us?

common misunderstanding about evolution. we didn't evolve from modern apes, we actually share a common ancestor with the proto-apes that they evolved from.

I really hope that's not an idiotic statement!!!! Thanx

not idiotic at all, just uninformed.

Originally posted by depth om
If we all flap our arms enough we'll get wings! Wait...

this thread is becoming the parade of straw man arguments.

Originally posted by nathan_p
Also, apes have no reason to evolve further than they are -- we're already at the top rung of the "ladder", so to speak. They have nowhere to go, so they won't evolve further.

no, evolution will keep going. apes will have new reasons to evolve, new situations to adapt to, just like every other living thing on the planet. evolutionary shifts in the critters around them will also encourage their own shifts

now, this doesn't necessarily mean that they will evolve into human-like beings with much intelligence. evolution tends towards survival, not intelligence

[edit on 9/20/07 by madnessinmysoul]

Thanks Madness. I've always been confused about that! I love all of you on here, you're so informed!

Well, obviously into something we haven't seen yet.
Morlocks and Eloi, perhaps.

Homo Sapiens have been around about0.5 million years.
The first proto-humans that split from the apes was about 5 to 10 million years ago (my sources are just googling around).

Life has been on earth for about 3,000 million years.

the humanity you see now is NOT the ultimate form of Life. It may seem stable in our short term view of our lives.

Fast forward things 10 million years. Where will we be?
If technological humanity survives, then we'll be whereever the tech takes us. Entirely "Intelligently Designed" by ourselves, probably.

Maybe other species will be gaining intelligence.... our pets, super smart Maltese Terriers learning to create and use tools and speech.

If not, maybe we'll split off into a whole range of creatures... ocean going like dolphins, flying humanlike beasts, creatures able to resist the vacuum of space. You can let your imagination run riot.

It all depends on the pressures exerted on a species that now exists a huge number of geographic environments.

humans will become caricatures,

thru genetic engineering, the next stage of plastic surgeries,
all sorts of hormone manipulations & prenatal gene expression
sequences to create designer babies...

we will (depending on how deep one's pockets are) fashion our next generation's along the lines of ancient Roman &/or Greek demi-gods
or else one's favorite Hero-Heroine

in the interim, humanity will adapt/evolve resistance to all the heavy metals and pollutions of the resource consuming paradigm we are trapped in... those type of adaped humans will become a seperate branch of human (much like the morlocks of the classic 'The Time Machine" novel)

thats a brief glimpse....anything more will spoil the anticipation