So,Does one agree that humans might have common ancestors with apes but humans did not evolve from the monkeys?
Monkey is a vague term, and so are ape, but in biology, they used as umbrella labels or classifications for specific Primates. Then there is another branch of primates, with another umbrella taxonomic classification only bear vague resemblance to the monkeys: the lemurs.
What you need to understand in evolutionary biology and taxonomic classification, is that no modern extant species evolved into another species of a different genera.
To give you an an example. Let’s focus on the humans and chimpanzees link.
Bear in mind, I am not a biologist, nor am I paleontologist, so if you want answers from more complicated questions, then you have to ask someone else. My knowledge in biology ended in Year 9 high school science, that did teach evolution at all. They taught basic evolution in Year 10 biology, some more advanced stuff in years 11 and 12. Because I chose to focus on maths and physics after Year 9, much of what I learned about biology and evolution, come from the last 16-17 years of my life, in my own times.
So if you want better answers than what I am giving you ask someone with more experiences in biology than me, because I am certainly no expert.
Of all the primates families, subfamilies, genera and species, to the human genus - Homo - chimpanzees are the closest relative to the humans than to the gorillas.
But that doesn’t mean chimpanzees can give birth to humans. That’s not way evolution works, and people, especially creationists make this common errors, of which isn’t evolution.
Creationists who think evolution teach that chimpanzees can directly give birth to Homo sapiens or any other Homo sapiens, only demonstrate their lack of education. Ignorance isn’t a bad thing, if he or she can learn from their mistakes, but they become “stupid”, when they cannot learn from their mistakes and keep repeating the ignorance over and over again.
Chimpanzees belong to a grouping of genus called Pan. There are some species from Pan, other than chimpanzees, that are now extinct. The exact taxonomic species name for extant chimpanzees is Pan troglodytes “common chimpanzees”, and there are number of subspecies of these P troglodytes.
Now I don’t know what species than modern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) evolved from (this is where you might ask someone else), but it is most definitely primitive species. The older the species, the less characteristics it share with modern chimpanzees.
It is the same with Homo sapiens, that there are cladistically a number of different older and extinct Homo species that are shared some characteristics of our current anatomy. We (Homo sapiens) evolved from species known as the Homo heidelbergensis, and H heidelbergensis evolved from one of older Homo erectus, and so on.
The further back in time we look in the fossil records, the less Homo sapiens they look, such as the Homo habilis. The Homo habilis looked a lot less modern human like.
Go back even further, then you have Australopithecus, and further still, Ardipithecus, each one with fewer and fewer characteristics.
At some point, you will reach species just before divergence of the human and chimpanzees, known as Sahelanthropus tchadensis, some 7 million years ago. They have some Homo-like features and some Pan-like features, and the possible candidate of last common ancestor before the split between Homo and Pan.
You cannot have one species of one genus changing into another species of completely different genus. But you can seek the last common ancestors between the two genera, and hopefully find the missing link between the two genera and species, BUT that missing link species are neither human, nor chimpanzees.
Do you understand what I am saying in all this? If no, then I would suggest you ask someone.
