• Question: How did humans evolve from cells to apes?

    Asked by HAMMY to Deborah, Euan, Maheen, Rob, Stu on 19 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Euan Allen

      Euan Allen answered on 19 Jun 2016:

      Hi HAMMY. That’s a tough question. I’m not an expert on this, but I will give as much as I know!

      The process of evolution is something we call natural selection. This is the idea that when an animal is born, if it has a mutation or defect that actually makes it better at surviving in the environment (for example having slightly longer legs that usual), then this animal is more likely to survive to produce offspring. These offspring will also probably have slightly longer legs, and will themselves be more likely to survive and reproduce. This creates a cycle whereby animals evolve to have features that make it better at surviving the local environment.

      The reason why I think it seems incredible that this slow, simple, process managed to take us from cells to apes to human beings, is because we forget just how long nature has had to perform this evolution. We think the first cells appeared on Earth around 4,000 million years ago!

      You can read more about evolutionary history of the Earth here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_history_of_life

    • Photo: Rob Stanley

      Rob Stanley answered on 22 Jun 2016:

      @Euan’s answer is very good. I’ll just add that we’re still researching how cells first learnt to work together to make up a single organism, rather than working independently.

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