• https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/her/evolution-and-natural-selection/v/introduction-to-evolution-and-natural-selec
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_evolution

“If we’ve evolved from monkeys, then why haven’t those ones evolved?” Warne asked his fellow contestant, the dancer Bonnie Lythgoe, as they lounged on a riverbank in South Africa’s Kruger national park.

W: “Because, I’m saying, aliens. We started from aliens.”

W: “Look at those pyramids, Bonnie. You couldn’t do them. You couldn’t pull those ropes, huge bits of brick and make it perfectly symmetrical. Couldn’t do it. So who did it?”

B: “Has to be from another world, has to be.”

“Whatever planet they’re on out there, they decided that they were gonna start some more life here on earth and study us,” Warne went on.

B: “Scientifically, we have so many similarities to monkeys, so I don’t know.”

W: “Maybe they turned a few monkeys into humans and said, ‘Yeah, it works’”.

B: "What about all the fossils showing humanoids that look like animals partway between us and the monkeys?"

W: "I guess the created lots of half-human half-monkeys to try them out, and we're the only ones that survived."

B: "What about the evidence from carbon dating and geology that the ones that look most like us are the most recent, and the older ones are increasingly more monkey-like?"

W: "Aw Bonnie, the aliens must have put those bones in the ground to fool us."

Though "survival of the fittest" is the catchphrase of natural selection, "survival of the fit enough" is more accurate.

To grow, insects moult. Maybe it's better to do it a different way - but too late to go back!

Byproduct - The color of blood (spandrel, explained by Ian J)

Evolutionary anachronism

Those aren't the monkeys we evolved from

Survival of the fit enough, not the fittest

Not all traits of organisms are adaptations

• Straight black hair

• Adult lactase

• Blue eyes

• Smaller teeth (last 10K years)

• More salivary amylase (for grains)

What are these adaptations for?

• Straight black hair

• Adult lactase (cows, goats)

• Blue eyes (less sun, need vitamin D)

• Smaller teeth (cooked food)

• More salivary amylase (starch digestion)

• Or maybe these are not adaptations…