This is a very good question. Why DO so many people find it so unacceptable that we might be closely related to the apes?
I find it very hypocritical of man do not believe that we came from something less intelligent than us – although the difference might not always appear as large with some people. Evolution means that life continues to progress on an upward scale towards bigger and better things. This means that we will evolve into something bigger and better than we are today.
Just think about it. In a few hundred thousand years, we might be evolved into having an exponentially larger intelligence is and technology and we have today. If people of the future react towards us as we do towards apes, then they might be laughing at the joke that they came from such rudimentary and less intelligent creatures like us? Many of them will not believe it and it will be a copy of what we are doing today towards the ape.
How would you feel to be considered inferior beings, laughed at because superior beings consider us just as inferior as slaves or apes? You would hate it and consider it a great act of bigotry. If you do not like it to happen to you, then you should not be doing it towards apes. Remember the planet of the apes and how, one day in the future, we might be the slaves to apes. We will be the ones on the other side of the zoo cage being laughed at and made a fool of.
A few of my friends are horrified by the notion that we might be related to apes. But why such a drastic response to a subject that really should have no affect on mankind today. We are here today and that is all that should count. It doesn’t matter if we came from an inferior species are not. This does not change the fact that we are here today and now.
Shouldn’t it be a good thing for us to have evolved like we have? We should rejoice in the fact that might have evolved so greatly from an inferior species. If it is true, it means that we have overcome great obstacles of evolution in order to become what we have today.
If you went to college and no one else in your family has, do you feel superior to your family? Or do you find support from them and thank them for helping to raise you the way you have become? You should not feel superior to them because I am sure that there are many things that they can do that you cannot. Everyone is good at different things.
This is just as true of apes. While they might not be as smart as us and cannot work computers, they can still teach us a lot about the world. They teach us that sometimes innocence is a virtue and nature is peaceful compared to civilized mankind. The apes do not rush around and stress themselves out over meaningless jobs. They know how to take it easy and take the time to smell the roses.
I know of a lot worse creatures that we could have come from than apes. Don’t forget that we are mammals ourselves.
