One of my daughters was saying that us humans are descended from monkeys. No Sweetie, we're related not descended. What's that mean? I sat down and spent longer on that discussion than I did on cooking dinner. In case you went to a good school or are going to one now (like my daughter) and still don't know, here is a very basic primer on evolution.
My personal pet peeve, we are NOT descended from monkeys/apes/lemurs/chimps/or any other primates. We are cousins at best. Picture this: your thumb represents the human race, pointer finger is chimpanzees, middle is apes, ring is some other primate and pinkie is another some other primate. Your wrist is some unknown primate that we are all descended from.
Some people believe that evolution is in response to an environmental stimuli. Nope. If the air on the planet changed its balance so we had more CO2 and less O2 would we start mutating (evolving) into humans that have larger and more efficient lungs? Nope. The humans that had a mutation causing them to have bigger and better lungs could work and reproduce better thereby giving them and their offspring an edge against their competitors (aka neighbors). If the mutation works in that environment then it is passed on to offspring. If not the parent might not be able to pass it along.
A simple example of evolution can be seen with horses and zebras. The horse has the temperament to be domesticated partly because it evolved without any major predators. The zebra on the other hand evolved with numerous predators which is why they are so "twitchy", they're always ready to run. The two can be bred which will normally give you a hardy horse that's rather more wild than a wild horse. That is survival of the fittest, the pattern of life that is most able to survive and pass on its genes to offspring.
Genetic material from all life is constantly mutating, it's just not normally noticeable from our perspective.
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