How is Darwin's theories often misrepresented and misapplied?

A:

The most common misrepresentation of Darwin's scientific theory is that humans have developed from apes.

Humans have not developed from apes but rather share a common ancestor with apes, an animal which at an early point in time slowly (over millions of years) developed into separate species, two of which eventually survived as species until today.

Another frequent misunderstanding about Darwin's theory of evolution is that of 'intermediate species' which creationists often claim do not exist and thus in their opinion undermines the Theory of Evolution itself. The 'crocoduck', a non-existent animal half duck half crocodile, is often used by creationists to ridicule evolution yet in reality the crocoduck claim shows a profound misunderstanding of the Theory of Evolution itself by creationists, particularly their inability to understand a key element of the theory: small changes take place in species over long periods of time (hundreds of thousands of years) and not from one species directly giving birth to another species or intermediate with the crocoduck as a result.

Intermediate species have existed and the fossil record do shows these in what are called 'transitional fossils' but none of these are as spectacular as 'crocoduck creationists' would like them to be.