If Y came from X, then why does are there still X?

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If cheese came from milk, why is there still milk?
If paper came from trees, why are there still trees?
If hamburgers came from cows, why are there still cows?

If you apply this argument to just about anything, it becomes apparent just exactly how freaking stupid it is.

Here's what I want to know:
If man came from clay, why is there still clay?
If woman came from a man's rib, why do men still have ribs?

Humans didn't come from chimps if that's what you're getting at.

We share a common ancestor.

I know.

My point is that, even if we pretend for a moment that the creationist strawman was an accurate description of evolution, "why are there still monkeys?" would still be a freaking idiotic argument.

The Great Apes and human ancestors diverged about 5 million years ago.

Monkeys are very distant relatives—New World monkeys even more so.

He is referring to an old argument used by Young Earth Creationists.

"If humans came from apes then why are there still apes?".

Apparently YECs have a distorted understanding of evolution, and then use that lack of understanding to make the argument. They assume that evolution is unilinear. A lead to B, and thus B must replace A. In fact evolution is a bushing family tree, and not some unilinear road. Put simply: humans branched off from the apes, and both apes and humans went their merry separate ways, and coexist now. Just like the US was founded by colonists from England, but America and England both still exist today.

But also apes ARE all endangered species right now anyway. So even on that dumb simplistic level the argument doesnt make much sense- because we ARE, as we speak, pushing the living non human primates commonly called "apes" to extinction.

And I am not even taking it to the higher than grammar school level. The term "ape" is a kind of grab bag term anyway. Living apes are not closely related to each other. The common ancestor of humans and, say, chimps, was not an ape like any living ape today.

Some living apes are closer cousins to humans than they are to other apes. All of the African apes (chimps, bonobos, and gorillas)are closer to man than they are to the Asian apes ( orangutans and gibbons). Ergo we humans are ourselves, strictly speaking, a type of African Ape.

Ever consider the possibility that the people who use this type of argument understand it's terribly irrational and that they're just hoping to pull a fast one on anyone who falls for it?

Either they dont know its irrational, or they know it, and they are plying it on folks who have the simplistic understanding of evolution that I described above. So its six of one, and half of dozen of the other.

^


@OP: It's a lost cause and a waste of time. Logic and reason didn't get those people's heads to where they're at, and it sure as hell won't get them to snap out of it. Don't play that game (unless you actually find it fun, in which case... go nuts -- and hey, maybe you really will! ).

Sounds like a lowpass-filter.
Whoever falls for this argument can probably easily be talked into joining something and handing over money.

Men still have ribs because 'rib' is considered by many scholars to be a euphemism originating in the Septuagint for the baculum: a bone found in the penis of many mammals.
This would serve as a mythological explanation for why humans do not have a baculum. They knew men had the same number of ribs as women anyway. They saw skeletons all the time and could count.

As for clay, if people were made from clay, there could still be clay. It's not like God would have used up 100% of the earth's clay supply.


I feel like I mostly see this non-logic used by creationists like:
"If humans came from apes, why are there still apes?"
Because creationists can't be bothered to look up the basics of the science they choose to deny.

Sounds like somebody just searched until they found any bone other male mammals have but human men don't so they could say that's what the Bible meant by rib. A rib is a very specific bone in a very specific part of the body and does not just mean whatever bone you want it to mean.

Also, how do species with baculum have female members then?



I've personally met people who think men have less ribs than women.



I know. I'm just applying their same shotty logic to their own beliefs.



It just amuses me that even if we pretend their faulty understanding of evolution was accurate, their argument still fails.

I'm not sure what the argument is. The way you framed it, you appear to be asking:
IF an ingredient is needed to produce something, why are there still left-over ingredients after manufacture? Why don't we use up ALL the resources to make a product?

Look, I only slaughtered a few of the cows for the hamburgers. Didn't need to kill them all, didn't want to waste resources. Still have some around to produce more milk. Gonna bring the bulls around, and they'll make more cattle, so we can have more hamburgers and milk in the future. THE CIRCLE OF LIFE.

What is your real question?

As I explained above: his "real question is"..."why do Young Earth Creationists use this argument: ' if man evolved from apes why are there still apes?'".

@OP

I think you'll figure out, as you sojourn though life, that it's not about truth - it's about power. Tribalism closes people's ears because it's a group vs group competition for scarce resources, both the marginally true things that a tribe believes and the utter nonsense are shibboleths for that tribe and really these specific amalgamations of ideas form a kind of lexical heraldry or group emblem. The goal isn't truth - the goal is procreation, mutual support, and often domination of other groups who aren't them unless you're dealing with a particular kind of group that's embodied Enlightenment values in which case they may be trying (or at least giving lip service to) the species-wide game. Those groups last for as long as the psychopaths within their ranks are working more to their advantage, when it starts getting obvious that they completely have their own thing going on and that all of the rules are for the 'little' people under their feet then you start seeing fracturing and the pyramid begins to collapse.

The trouble then for groups who have subsumed Enlightenment values is that they can quite often be easily manipulated by the sorts of people who got really good at manipulating their parents by dropping the spoon out of the high chair and what these people do is start setting up all kinds of Kafka traps for other people to fall into - and by that they gain power for no better reason than being difficult to deal with. IMHO while actual 'liberalism' seems like our best shot at a world we'd want, if we can make it work, there's a lot of naivety about social and tribal game theory that needs to be resolved for liberalism not to just be a veal factory and as long as naivety and projecting 'best intent' on others or based on grand narratives is still a think we're not likely to resolve any of this and liberalism will be an extremely fragile thing - of the sort where the pilot light may even go back out again if people can't figure out what Darwinian evolution actually tells us about games of differential success and just how self-centered and even self-destructive under the aegis of one purpose that our genes can be.

So yes - you will hear truly long-debunked arguments for the rest of your life because it's not necessarily a cognitive misunderstanding or lack of education. It's a much more insidiously pragmatic use of words and ideas.

They know humans didn't evolve from apes, so they're amusing themselves?

It was just something I had heard proposed by certain Jewish scholars, namely Ziony Zevit. I'm not exactly a Biblical scholar but this wouldn't be the only time the Bible used euphemism to avoid direct sexual references.

I don't know about why other animals do or don't have it. Maybe the ones that don't also got lonely?