374 Evolution? The Fossils Say YES!
meaningless, and their basis is only a tiny part of our genome. In fact, evidence shows that
most of the “racial differences” such as skin color and the shape of the eyes are a very recent
change in human evolution, occurring sometime after nearly all modern human lineages
emerged from Africa about 70,000 years ago. This is an important thing to think about when
we find issues of race coming up in society.
Some people may find it unsettling that we are 97.6 percent genetically identical to the
chimpanzee, but no amount of creationist propaganda can change the truth found in every
cell in your body. Instead, it is better to accept that the evidence of science has shown us just
how much an integral part of nature we really are; we are part of creation, and we cannot
treat the rest of creation as something to be abused. So the next time you see a chimpanzee in
a zoo, have pity on your close relative and think hard about the implications of that handful
of genes that differentiate you from it.
As Smith and Sullivan (2007:100) put it:
Do people come from monkeys? Not at all. We do share a common ancestor with
chimpanzees, and before them, with the group that became monkeys. But to say
we come from monkeys is simply wrong, and evolution has never claimed it. . . .
Unless we want to live in a web of lies, we can’t pick and choose what to believe,
not when the raw data of genetics, fossil studies, and anatomical studies are laid
before us.Anyone is free to argue whether they like being a primate or whether they like being related
to chimpanzees—but that’s not the question. The question is whether or not we’re descended
from monkeys, and the evidence is in: we’re not, but we are related to them.
For Further Reading
Beard, K. C. 2004. The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origin of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Conroy, G. C. 1990. Primate Evolution. New York: Norton.
Delson, E. C. 1985. Ancestors: The Hard Evidence. New York: Liss.
Diamond, J. 1992. The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal. New York:
HarperCollins.
Johanson, D., and B. Edgar. 1996. From Lucy to Language. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Lewin, R. 1987. Bones of Contention: Controversies in the Search for Human Origins. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Lewin, R. 1988. In the Age of Mankind: A Smithsonian Book on Human Evolution. Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution Press.
Lewin, R. 1998. Principles of Human Evolution: A Core Textbook. New York: Blackwell.
Marks, J. 2002. What It Means to be 98 Percent Chimpanzee. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Pääbo, S. 2014. Neandertal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes. New York: Basic.
Prothero, D. R. 2016. The Princeton Field Guide to Prehistoric Mammals. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press.
Sibley, C. G., and J. E. Ahlquist. 1984. The phylogeny of hominoid primates, as indicated by DNA-DNA
hybridization. Journal of Molecular Evolution 20:2–15.
Stringer, C., and C. Gamble. 1993. In Search of Neanderthals: Solving the Puzzle of Human Origins. London:
Thames and Hudson.