reply to post by thomasc83
There is no definitive proof that the past primate/human fossils aren't types of extinct primates, actually it's more likely they are.
Not quite sure what your point is here. Past primate/
pre-human are exactly that: extinct primates. The proof is that they once existed, and now
they don't.
Your post seems to imply that you don't quite understand what happens to a species as it evolves into new species. Sometimes the "original" form
continues, sometimes it goes extinct.
Maybe an analogy would help. Suppose you are walking in the woods on a trail along side a small creek. You come to a fork in the road. One fork
crosses the stream where a tree has fallen across the creek and continues on through the meadow on the other side and on into the forest beyond. Which
trail is the original? Its a bit arbitrary, but lets decide that the one that does not cross is the original. So we continue on a bit further and come
to another fork. This time one fork starts a switchback up the side of the hill. Again we continue on the creek trail and find that it comes to an end
at the top of a waterfall.
So we have just witnessed two evolutionary branches and an extinction. If we go back to the trail that started up the hill, and get to the top, we
find yet another fork, one of which goes down a slope and ends at a cliff providing a viewpoint looking over the valley below, while the other
continues on down the hill into the valley. We now have two completely different trails, co-existing, but with a common ancestor. Continuing on either
the forest trail or the valley trail we will find further forks and further dead-ends.
This is a very simplistic analogy, but I think it addresses the misconception that your post implies to me: that fossil primate remains are somehow
all linked in a perfect series from the most ancient to modern. They aren't, several existed at the same time, Neanderthal and Modern certainly
co-existed and interacted (some claim even interbred).
Evolution isn't just a species evolving from one thing to another to another to another. There are branches and dead-ends.
What is it they say? Good luck with that! Right on.
This is much more fun then repeating the same correct answer over and other. Just make something up.
Like ... the second law of thermodynamics is not a valid argument because we are the 3rd plant from the star and then spit out a random equation. 
