• Question: What evidence do we have that humans are descended from apes?

    Asked by sam24009 on 6 Jan 2014.
    • Photo: Andrew Beale

      Andrew Beale answered on 6 Jan 2014:

      Hi,

      This very question was considered during the Royal Institution’s Advent Calendar series of videos. On the 2nd December, relating to Chromosome 2, Aoife McLysaght presented some of the clearest evidence that humans descended from apes: our chromosome 2 has come from a fusion of two chromosomes in chimpanzees.

      The video is here: http://youtu.be/GkVmhXhPvqk

      We also have very good evidence from comparing the whole genomes of humans and apes – comparing every letter in the DNA in the genome between humans and apes. A comparison like this was presented in Lecture 2: if we compare all the DNA sequences of all the genes in humans with all the DNA sequences of all the genes in chimpanzees, the result is that they are 97% identical – the highest figure of humans with any animal.

    • Photo: Stefan Piatek

      Stefan Piatek answered on 6 Jan 2014:

      A great answer Andrew,
      The only thing that I’d add is that we also have a pretty good fossil record of human evolution that shows a common ancestor too.

    • Photo: Haihan Tan

      Haihan Tan answered on 6 Jan 2014:

      Well explained by Andrew and Stefan.

      At the risk of sounding a tad pedantic, I’ll add that it would be more accurate to say that humans and apes of today arose from a “common ancestor”, instead of humans descending directly from apes. If you imagine a tree with branches, the tips of two branches would represent humans and apes, and if you trace the branches back to where they fork, that would represent the common ancestor. In fact, if you take into account rates of mutation and DNA sequence differences between humans and apes, you can actually estimate the point in time in the past when this common ancestor existed!

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