Then why are the Temple of Darwin scientists saying that this “research brings into question the belief that our most distant ancestors descended from apes”?
>> Then why are the Temple of Darwin scientists saying that this “research brings into question the belief that our most distant ancestors descended from apes”? <<
The apes of today are not the apes a four million years ago. The idea that science is discovering may be true is that our most common ancestor between the lines that exist today may need to be pushed back based of newly found fossil evidence. You never know what fossil evidence may be dug up or accidentally discovered tomorrow, but it is a new piece in puzzle that may never be 100% understood, but we may eventually get a general sense in how life developed on earth over the Billions of years this planet has existed.
Take your pick.
1. The scientists are being misquoted by sensationalist journalists.
2. The scientists are trying to get publicity for what by any logical standard isn’t that big a discovery.
At least that’s how it seems to me. What counts is what the discovery means, not what scientists say it means.
“Then why are the Temple of Darwin scientists saying that this “research brings into question the belief that our most distant ancestors descended from apes”?”
—I think that was a really poorly phrased way of trying to say that we changed just as much as chimps since the common ancestor. I.e. we didn’t evolve “from” apes - us and chimps changed just as much since the common ancestor, and in fact we may have change less than chimps (at in fact in total anatomy we may have even changed slightly less, at least from the neck down). The next sentence indicates what he meant - although I think it’s a dumb and confusing way of putting it.