Why do Christians say evolution teaches people evolved from monkeys?

People who don't care about biology don't realize that gorillas, orangutans, etc. aren't "monkeys." They use that word to refer to all non-human primates. They definitely don't understand that there used to be other primate species that no longer exist.

So our ancestors had to be either "humans" or "monkeys." The concept "a recent ancestor of humans had anatomy similar to a chimpanzee" becomes "a recent ancestor of humans was the monkey."

It's like a translation problem. If you try to translate "his" and "hers" into a language that doesn't distinguish between genders, that information gets lost. Uneducated people only have one word, "monkey," for all primates and proto-primates, so some information gets lost in translation.

surely Christians at the prompt are not the purely ones who imagine that way. the idea of evolution surely ability "unfolding" or consistent progression. This consistent progression is made achieveable through genetic flow or organic determination. that's what's customary interior the clinical international because the idea of Evolution by technique of organic determination === a idea that replaced into spawned and promulgated by technique of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, and that you would possibly want to also analyze in Darwin's e book "The beginning of the Species". Sigh, this would take an total lecture, yet besides, briefly, the idea that guy got here from monkeys replaced into surely first proposed by technique of the clinical community, not in basic terms Darwin, besides the indisputable fact that Darwin replaced into between the commonest supporters of this idea. we've Thomas Huxley, Carolus Linnaeus and Raymond Dart to call very few. in case you want to study extra, attempt to get a replica of the e book by technique of Darwin, "The Descent of guy". better yet, attempt Wikipedia :-)

Science deniers aren't exactly the brightest crayons in the box.

Most people simply IGNORE fact when it throws there faith into chaotic contradiction.

But most Christians are not intelligent, so its easier NOT to understand something than to realize knowing where we came from has nothing to do with religion.

Early evolutionists DID teach this, and several strings of reasoning still do. In all honesty, the more I know about monkies, the more it seems probable.

I think Christians say this because it was at once a very popular belief, probably in the time when they were developing their rhetoric in response to evolution.

Well it does - sort of, but they say it because they think it sounds unreasonable.

eidt: By the way, did any of you watch that video before thumbing me down?

Christians don't teach that. TEACHERS IN SCIENCE CLASS DID. When I was in school, longer ago than I care to admit, that WAS the prevailing "wisdom". It changed in recent years to the lovely "common ancestor" theory. I'm guessing the monkey thing didn't work out. Just like "life began in the earth's oceans" only now it's lakes and rivers.

ROLF... truth hurts, huh? Ever heard of the Snopes "monkey" trials?

@Lynn: Not if it was the basic principle at the time... and it WAS. Hence, as I mentioned, the Snopes MONKEY trial.

Uneducated guesses. You're right, evolution states that humans and monkeys shared a common ancestor and we divided from each other in the evolutionary tree.

A. They've never read a book on evolution. B. They want to try to ridicule it, because "Adam and Eve" and the Genesis story make so much more sense! :-)

Scientific ignorance coupled with confirmation bias.