In response to this statement, some evolutionists point out that they don’t
believe that we descended from apes, but that apes and humans share a common
ancestor. However, the evolutionary paleontologist G.G. Simpson had no time for
this “pussyfooting,” as he called it. He said, “In fact, that earlier ancestor
would certainly be called an ape or monkey in popular speech by anyone who saw
it. Since the terms ape and monkey are defined by popular usage, man’s ancestors
were apes or monkeys (or successively both). It is pusillanimous [mean-spirited]
if not dishonest for an informed investigator to say otherwise.”
However, the main point against this statement is that many evolutionists
believe that a small group of creatures split off from the main group and became
reproductively isolated from the main large population, and that most change
happened in the small group which can lead to allopatric speciation (a
geographically isolated population forming a new species). So there’s nothing in
evolutionary theory that requires the main group to become extinct.
It’s important to note that allopatric speciation is not the sole property of
evolutionists—creationists believe that most human variation occurred after
small groups became isolated (but not speciated) at Babel, while Adam and Eve
probably had mid-brown skin color. The quoted erroneous statement is analogous
to saying “If all people groups came from Adam and Eve, then why are mid-brown
people still alive today?”
So what’s the difference between the creationist explanation of people
groups (“races”) and the evolutionist
explanation of people origins? Answer: the former involves separation of
already-existing information and loss of information through mutations; the
latter requires the generation of tens of millions of “letters” of new
information.