Originally Posted by F L E S H
you can be pretty funny sometimes :D
The reason there are still chimps/gorillas/etc. is because we didn't evolve from them.
Look at it this way: Look at how many different kind of cats we have around the world today, like lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, ocelots, lynx, right down to our little house cats. If you go back far enough in time, there was only 1 kind of cat, which was the ancestor to all the felines living today. Each kind of cat evolved separately from the others because they split up a long time, lived in a completely different environment, ate completely different kinds of prey, etc. Now, the question your asking would be similar to asking, "if there are tigers (the biggest, strongest feline predators out there), why are there still jaguars, house cats, etc.?"
Because they aren't the sme animals anymore, because they didn't go extinct (yet), because they developped in COMPLETELY different ways (in case you hadn't noticed... :D )
The biggest misconception about evolution is to say that we evolved from those primates that are still around today. We didn't evolve from chimps, but if you go back in time far enough you'll find that humans and chimps evolved from the same species, which now doesn't exist.
We evolved from early hominids, or early 'human-like' animals, which don't exist anymore. However, all those millions of years-old fossils we're finding are of those early hominids, and those extinct species are ones which we evolved from.
Hope that's clear, if not, tell me.