Man came from Monkey? Dude… seriously?

I remember during 7th grade or so, my history teacher talked about Australopithecus, Zinjanthropus, Pithecanthropus, and Neanderthal men. I am surprised I still remember these terms because it was a “very important question” for the final exam. But there was one thing I didn’t quite understand. The concept of, “Man came from monkey” sounded utterly stupid to me. I asked my mom if it was true. And she said yes. Because, of course, she learned that when she was in high school as well. I walked on the road carrying my school bag looking at buffaloes and goats. I asked my friends, “Why aren’t buffaloes and goats intelligent? Why did the monkeys evolve but they didn’t”? They laughed it off, they thought I was cracking a joke. But I wasn’t. I asked my teacher, and she replied, “Because the monkey’s genes are closer to humans and they could walk erect”. I asked her, “So, why are there still monkeys around if they have already evolved”? She replied it was because, over millions of years, few species of monkeys evolved, others didn’t. I doubted if the teacher knew what she was talking about, but I had no better “theory” to believe. I prodded my Biology teacher for an answer when I was in 9th grade, “Alright, if humans evolved from monkeys, where did monkeys evolve from? Bacteria? If evolution is true, then why didn’t elephants and crocodiles, that’s been around since Ice age, did not evolve? Only monkeys became human? If monkeys were before humans, then what was before the monkey? Reptiles?”. She grew impatient and said, “Maybe you should grow a tail, you will understand”. The other kids laughed. As a kid, whenever I saw a monkey, I sighed in disbelief, “How could people be so dumb to believe we came from that”? I couldn’t understand how everyone fell for it if all we have are a bunch of skeletons for proof. Then, what about all those intermediary Neanderthal men, etc.? Where did they go? Even modern researches say, “It’s a great mystery”. Some say Neanderthals and Homosapiens coexisted and Homosapiens killed Neanderthals causing their extinction. Wait, what? It sounded like a potpourri of some truth, some hogwash, some fantasy, all woven together.

Aren’t kids of the present generation smarter? It may be that the previous generation started with radios, the following generation started with Black and White Televisions, and the present generation is starting with Tablets. They are not any smarter than us, just as we are not any smarter than our parents or grandparents. If we put all of us in one basket and start from scratch, maybe we all will be the same in terms of intelligence. It’s like sprint running but different people start from different points, the one that starts front-most will appear to run faster.

Why are there so many different races? Where did they come from? African-looking, Caucasian-white-looking, Mongolian-Chinese-looking, Indian-looking, Native-American looking, Australian-aborigine-looking people? The theory is that the features change depending on the region they are in. Then, shouldn’t the Caucasian whites who migrated to America be losing their color and slowly become brownish like Native Americans? Or the Caucasians in Australia should gradually become darker like the Australian aborigines. Elephants are gray anywhere else in the world, they don’t change color, the Chinese elephants don’t have Mongolian features nor are the European elephants white! If the change in features according to the place is true, shouldn’t there be Caucasian-looking, Asian-looking elephants roaming around?

I was shocked when I recently came across the photos of Australian aborigine people of today. They looked EXACTLY like the Neanderthal men that the history book talked about. Or the so-called “caveman”. That’s exactly how the Australian aborigines look even to this day! So, they didn’t evolve is it? That’s BS! There are many Australian aborigines in the technology industry.

Except for the fact that these kept itching inside me, I had no choice but to repeat Australopithecus and all those history jargon. I realized the mass believes anything that’s “widely accepted”. Later, as I grew up, through my life experience, I realized a few skilled people in the world knew the knack to dupe people into believing any bull shit. I noticed them in software companies to politics to religious places.

Once there was an experiment conducted with a bunch of monkeys by behavioral scientists. The experiment was, they put 3 monkeys inside a cage. They kept them hungry. Then they placed one banana in the cage. Whenever a monkey touched the banana, the scientists beat up the other 2 monkeys with a stick. The confused monkeys, out of hunger, went near the banana again after a few hours and one of them managed to pick it up. Again, the other 2 monkeys got beaten up. The scientists continued this for a week. The monkeys learned that the banana shouldn’t be touched. Now, the monkeys, out of fear of getting beaten up by the scientists, started policing each other. They never let the other monkeys touch the banana. Whenever a monkey went near the banana, the other two monkeys surrounded and beat up this monkey. After a week, the scientists removed one monkey and introduced a new 3rd monkey into the group. They kept it hungry and introduced a banana. The other 2 monkeys knew they would get beaten up if the 3rd monkey went near the banana. This poor new monkey, oblivious of this, went near the banana. The other 2 monkeys, for fear of getting beaten by the scientists, ran towards the 3rd monkey and thrashed it. After a few days of this ordeal, the 3rd monkey was clueless but just knew it would get beat up by the other monkeys if it went near the banana. After a week, they removed one more old monkey and introduced a new monkey. Now, this new monkey again got beat up whenever it went near the banana. Only the first monkey knew the actual reason, it would get beat up by the scientists if it lets another monkey touch the banana. The 2nd monkey had no clue, but just thought it had to beat up any monkey going near the banana. The poor 3rd monkey had no idea what was going on but understood it would get beat up if it went near the banana. Eventually, the scientists replaced the only remaining old monkey with another new monkey. Now there are 3 new monkeys, none of them were part of the original group. Every time a new monkey was introduced, the other 2 monkeys beat up the new monkey if it went near the banana. Except for the original 3 monkeys, none of the other monkeys had any clue why they were beating each other up.

This is exactly what happened with religion on the planet. Except for the original saints, sages, and prophets who gave the teachings at particular times, it was passed on to the later generations in whatever way it was understood. And eventually, people began to blindly follow without even understanding what was actually being said. People added all kinds of nonsense to religious texts that if they don’t follow this God or that God, they will go to heaven or hell or whatever. Maybe looking at this blind stupidity, Darwin thought that man must have come from a monkey.

Have we ever met God? Have we ever wondered where we were before we were born? Where we will go after we die? I realized nobody actually gave a damn about it. How could that be possible? Once we had a huge family gathering, we all sat in a circle and were talking. Suddenly my cousin sister said, “I sometimes wonder where I came from, what’s the whole point of this life”. Hearing that, I was surprised and thought to myself, “Wow! Go, girl!”. But the excitement was short-lived, the whole family broke into raucous laughter. “Ha ha ha! What happened to you! Are you crazy? What kind of thought is that? Come back to your senses!”. I was taken aback by that reaction. I remembered the monkey story, beating each other up without even knowing why. And some rare species like her asking the question, “Why am I getting beaten up? What am I even doing here?” and met with ridicule.

There are thousands of mysteries in the world, like hieroglyphics of spaceships in Pyramids in Egypt, some Hindu scriptures mentioning about 214 Earth-like planets in this galaxy that can sustain life, the unexplained phenomenon still baffling the scientists like the giant crop circles that no one knew who created, the disappearance of Mayan civilization, the flying “Vimana” mentioned in Hindu texts, the numerous Angels and miracles mentioned in the Bible and Quran, the ancient civilizations of Atlantis and Lemuria, the numerous UFO sightings throughout the planet. If these are ridiculous, “Man came from monkey” is even more ridiculous.

Evolution may be partly true. But there definitely is a missing catalyst in the evolution that must have helped cavemen to invent computers. Who knows! Maybe, it might open another can of worms in the evolution theory, something that humans wouldn’t fathom, like an alien knowledge transfer or something. Nevertheless, we don’t need any more monkey evolution theories, there are enough monkeys on this planet who have no clue but beat each other up for no reason.