Yadda wrote on Aug 26
th, 2017 at 6:23pm:
Jovial Monk wrote on Aug 26
th, 2017 at 5:47pm:
We descended from a common ape ancestor.
Plenty of room for man and apes.
And one line of apes evolved, and evolved, and evolved, and evolved, and evolved, and after millions of years they became the species we know as 'mankind'.
But a lot of other apes refused to evolve, because they were happy to remain who they were.
And so, today, we have apes and mankind living in the same time period.
Sounds like something [a hypothesis] that someone with a mind like Richard Dawkins could have dreamed up.
/sarc off
All animals evolve or they go extinct.
An upright gait is more energy efficient than a four legged one, hence a few more babies to a population of apes walking more upright. Hence the upright gait became the dominant one among H. sapiens ancestors. Then the opposable thumb could aid manipulation of objects so the opposable thumb became the dominant trait etc.
Apes that locomoted using all four legs, or legs and arms if you like, evolved but without the upright gait did not evolve towards sapience.
There was nothing inevitable about the rise of H. sapiens, nor was or is his survival guaranteed. For all our big brains—we are the only animal that chits in its own nest.