"If I descended from an ape, how come apes are still here?"

Wrong.The cause of the confusion is that the questioner is an easily confused idiot. "How come apes are still here?" is an inane question on many levels. First, humans are apes. Second, the particular ape that is the actual common ancestor of humans and chimps is extinct. Third, even a fool can see that humans don't compete with other with other primates by trying to fill the same niche.The flip responses given by Dr. Adequate, PaulK, and others in this thread ought to be sufficient to see that the question misses the mark. Someone who cannot see that the question is facially ridiculous given those answers is never going to understand a more detailed answer. Don't waste your time.

Perhaps becoming hardened does not take overly long.I generally agree that proper answers are best. But this particular question, (and the question of how Venus and Neptune can have retrograde rotation if all matter was created in the big bang) really irk me.

So what would be the "how come apes are still here" question that could be answered using cat and dog evolution?It seems to me that you are moving from providing an answer to the original incredibly stupid problem, to a more general problem of demonstrating that evolution is possible. Who do you see as the audience for this effort?

I still think you are attacking at the wrong point. Consider that you cannot fully describe the apes/man evolution, yet you can see that "why are there still apes" is a nonsense question. You could not possibly have reached your own position on the matter by considering human evolution in detail.For one to rationally conclude that "why are there still apes" is a valid retort requires a fundamental misunderstanding of what proponents of evolution actually think happened. A logically sufficient response to the question would be to show that evolution as scientists understand it is different from evolution as the questioner understands it. You don't need proof that scientists are right; you just need to establish that the question is irrelevant.

I'm referring to your position on whether "how come apes are still here" is a rebuttal of the theory of evolution. You apparently do have an opinion on that. That's fine. Those people still don't need a detailed explanation of human and chimp evolution to understand why there are still apes. If such an explanation were necessary, then you ought to be just as puzzled as they on why there are still apes.

I don't buy it. Even if people think that the picture shows a single animal changing, the picture doesn't imply that all apes made such a change.Second, if the picture is a problem, then the misconception that there shouldn't be any more apes ought to go away with a brief explanation of how evolution in general actually works.Anyone who persists beyond a brief explanation is probably a fanatic. Leave him be.

Maybe it has already happened. It's already the case that I cannot understand you.