BobToday
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While all scientific evidence seems to show that humans evolved over time through natural selection, human evolution remains a controversial subject. Despite the evidence, some religious conservatives claim that humans were put on Earth as we are now by God only a couple thousand years ago and all historical evidence like fossils and dinosaur bones are an elaborate joke played on us by God to test our faith. It is true that evolution has not been proven and it is unlikely it will ever be proven. Like most of science, evolution remains a theory.
Most people take human evolution to mean that people evolved from apes or monkeys. Scientific evolutionists do not believe this at all. Evolutionists believe that humans and apes evolved from a common, ape-like, ancestor millions of years ago. The exact animal from which both humans (homo sapiens) and apes evolved has not yet been discovered. For years, this unknown animal has been called the “missing link.”
Scientific evidence on the molecular level and DNA evidence suggests that the missing link existed about 8 million years ago. Gorillas were the first to split off from the line that led to humans. About 4 million or 5 million years ago, the final split was made when chimpanzees formed their own line. From that time on, more human-like ancestors diverged. Humans had several ancestors. Australopithecines were among the first genus to come from the new line and they are considered the ancestors of our current genus, Homo. Another genus, Paranthropus, also evolved from this line but appear to have formed their own branch that the Homo genus did not evolve from. For the most part, Australopithecines dominated the line for 3 million years before the Homo genus arrived. The first species of the Homo genus was Homo habilis. Homo georgicus came next but lasted only a few thousand years. The longest existing species was our ancestor, Homo erectus, dominating the line for over 1.5 million years. Afterward came Homo heidelbergensis and then our most recent ancestor, Homo neanderthalensis, or Neanderthal man. For thousands of years Neanderthal man and Homo sapiens lived at the same time but eventually Neanderthals became extinct leaving only us.
 Posted 5399 day ago
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