Cross Breeds

Has the funny stereotype of monkeys contributed to people rejecting evolution? ?

Do you think the fact that monkeys are funny animals in most cultures contributed to people rejecting evolution? Do you think human evolution would be more acceptable if we had evolved from animals that are more revered in most cultures? Such as lions and eagles?

Public Comments

1. People that reject evolution believe that humanity came about fully formed by G-d. BTW, man did not descend from monkeys. Men and monkeys both descended from a common ancestor. We are evolutionary cousins, not children.
2. Monkeys have the reputations they do because they resemble caricatures of humans. Inevitable given the common ancestry. They are interesting and worthy creatures that have been misused by cheap shot artists since time immemorial. Their reputations are all most people know about them, they confuse the cartoonish image with an actual understanding. The rejection of evolution is partly egotism and partly group chauvinism on the part of fundamentalists. "I'm special, made in gods image" is pretty far removed from being humble. The rest is a complex that fundamentalists put on each other to prevent them questioning their leaders. Defining personal virtue as unquestioning adherence to doctrine either keeps people from asking questions or drives out the innately curious. Defining them as one of the Impious Other. If not Enemy with a capital E still an enemy incapable of, and a threat to personal virtue.
3. Perhaps ... that coupled with the fact that people hold bad understandings of evolution ... like thinking that humans "evolved from" monkeys. Once you let go of the notion that we "evolved from" monkeys, but understand instead that we are simply *related* to them by common ancestry, then you realize that we are *also* related to lions and eagles by common ancestry. In other words, it is no different than the everyday knowledge (regardless of your opinion about evolution) that we are primates like the monkeys, mammals like the lions, and vertebrates like the eagles. I.e. ... just ignoring evolution for a second ... does it make any difference to you to be called a "mammal"? Are you more inclined to accept that notion, because lions are also mammals? Or are you more inclined to *reject* it because warthogs and lemurs are also mammals? Answer: It shouldn't make a difference. But corvis hits the nail on the head when he points out that it is *inevitable* that our closest relatives in the animal kingdom (which is the apes, by the way, not the monkeys) would resemble us! So it would be natural to find them amusing caricatures of humans. (BTW, I personally find the apes ... like chimps gorillas and orangutans, to be regal, admirable creatures ... until we start putting them in cages, or making them act or dress up as humans, for our own entertainment.) This causes some people not only to reject evolution, but even to reject the claim that we are primates, or that we are apes. In other words, people who reject a cornerstone theory of modern biology, because they find some animals "funny", or (as I've heard from some people) "stupid" or "disgusting" ... quickly find themselves rejecting a *lot* of things that scientists accept, for completely non-scientific reasons. --- P.S. emucompboy and I have a longstanding disagreement over whether it is correct to say we "evolved from monkeys". It is correct IF AND ONLY IF you are not talking about any species of monkey alive today. But, since most people are specifically thinking of monkeys we see today ... as evidence by this asker's question about the "funny animals" we call "monkeys" ... it is most definitely NOT true that we "evolved from" them. Or to put it another way ... it leads to a *better understanding* of evolution to avoid the "evolved from" phrase when comparing ourselves to any other living species or category that *includes* living species. Why? Because it needs careful qualification to say that the category also includes long extinct species. The "shared a common ancestor with" phrase is better ... because it doesn't need further qualification ... and because it allows the more unifying understanding of our relationship to *all* other animals that evolution gives us ... the unifying understanding that I refer to in my second paragraph above. I.e. the "evolved from" phrase does not unify humans, monkeys, apes, lions and eagles. But the "shared a common ancestor with" phrase *DOES* unify them all ... because it is unambiguous to say that humans "share a common ancestor with" monkeys, apes, lions, and eagles.
4. Yes. When Darwin's theory was published, there was a lot of "my grandfather wasn't a monkey" talk going around. You can still find this sort of thing from religious ignoramuses (just check back through the biology Q&A here, you'll find some). Oh, and poo on the other responders who say that we're not descended from monkeys. Fact: We ARE descended from monkeys. "Monkey" is a term that includes forms extant and extinct. Our ancestor of 25 million years ago was a monkey. If you saw him, you'd classify him as an Old World monkey. Similarly, longer ago we have ancestors who were fish. They were fish. We call them fish. We don't circumlocute by saying "we're not descended from fish, we have common ancestors with fish." For crying out loud.
5. It's more than just a funny stereotype about monkeys that means we reject evolution. It's the whole thing! It's like the Tower of Babel in the Bible: man designed his own theory, it resulted in many languages (think "theories"), and, in the end, they couldn't agree on anything! It's the same case with evolution. It's man's idea: not God's.