Questions for Evolutionists

[tolbiny]

"but is was our common ancestor also extinct at the time?"
Our common ancestor with neanderthalensis was probably erectus which was spread throughout Africa asia and parts of europe- The european population gave rise to neaderthals (there is an intermediary step in here though)and the African population gave rise to humans. When sapeins moved from africa to europe they out competed neaderthals. The youngest neanderthal fossils are around 27,000 years old, and sapiens moved into europe around 120-150k years ago, so it wasn't immediate at all.

"I guess I can see how a species like [censored] sapien may never evolve again."

There are two schools of thought on evolution. One is gradualism, that is species evolve slowly over time and at some difficult to determine period they eventually become a new species. The other is puntuated equilibrium (PE)- where an event "triggers" massive changes in a species over a short period of time. The trigger is usually an environmental stres- drought, or a wether pattern change, or a new predator. Something that won't kill of the species immediately, but will alter their habitat so they are no longer super efficient and any wierdos in the herd will have the opportunity to experience better reproductive fitness. Humans are a lot less suceptible to these stresses, so it is less likely that you will see dramatic changes in the population. (i personally suscribe to the belief that both effect evolution).

"But is it possible there will be some apes in Africa that will learn how to use fire?"

Not likely- the use of fire (in fact our entire evolution) was percipitated by bipedality- that is walking on two legs. That niche is filled now, there isn't any advantage to chimps coming down from the trees again.
Dogs aren't likely to evolve bigger brains either- their birth canal wouldhave to be much wider to pas out a bigger head- something very difficult (actually virtually impossible for a quadraped to give birth to a child with a body to brain ratio that we have) for a quadraped.

My background- my dad teaches and does reasearch on genetics so i grew up around biology alot. As for human evolution i just finished a class called "human evolution, the physical evidence" which is focused on the physical changes that took place to get from our common ancestor with chimps to where we are now.