Questioning Evolution

It seems that science supports evolution as factual. And in most of my mind I do too, but there is a naive part of me that asks why we have not continued to evolve. Maybe there are some species of animal and trees that I am unaware of that have changed over the last few years, but unless I am mistaken, humans as a group, have not changed much over the course of the past thousand years or so. Also, if it is true that we evolved from primates, why are there still primates? Why do they not continue to evolve and become human?
There was an example I heard recently of a magpie who for the first time in documented science, is able to recognize itself in the mirror. They tested this idea by placing a white mark on their chests, similar to the other white spots on the birds and watching their reaction in the mirror(which was none), and then placing various colors of marks and trying the same exercise (making sure they could only see the mark in the mirror), the birds began scratching and trying to get to the mark to take it off, leading scientists to believe that they recognized their own image in the mirror. This is important in an evolutionary sense because birds do not have a neocortex, the part of the brain in mammals that is believed to be linked to self recognition. In fact only a few species of mammals even have this ability. Is this a sign of evolution?
So, if animals and trees are still evolving, why is it that humans have stopped? Are we trying to say that this is the best we can get? This is what thousands of years of evolution was striving for? Are we not capable of more? Is it possible that we have stunted our own evolutionary experience? It appears to me there are fewer "evolved" individuals in this world every day.
I realize that this post did not have a lot to do with the readings, although it was sparked by the discussions of evolution by the Professors in the Socratic Universe interviews under the question of science and religion. I will do another post more closely related to the readings just in case, but I really wanted to pose these questions to see if anyone could help me understand evolution a little more.

Admirable Ethical Systems

In Chapter 4 of The Socratic Universe I found that I could most understand and agree with Professor Churchland's views on Ethical Systems which in essence I guess would be Aristotle's ideas ofethics. Common Sense is definitely not so common nowadays in a society that values instant gratification and a bigger is better type of attitude. Now, while wisdom may not be necessary to follow the rules and following the rules may lead people to believe that they are generally good and moral and maybe even ethical, i think it takes a degree of independant critical thinking and wisdom to really be able to consider oneself a good person. Anyone can do what they are told but to be able to make the distinction between right andwrong, moral and immoral, ethical and unethical, without having to be told or taught, that, I believe, is the mark of a truly good and ethical person.
I found Needleman's response to the question of admirable ethical systems to be most puzzling. While the idea of Christianity may have been admirable, the follow through has been less than stellar. Many "Christians" live lives that don't seem to follow the plainly outlined 'rules and guidelines' that they are supposed to in order to receive eternal salvation. I am surprised that he did not feel the need to expand his response a bit (then again, I guess I am not that surprised as many who admire the Christian ideals do not feel the need to support, defend or back up their views). I found it interesting that a Professor of Philosophy, which seems to be somewhat of a study of questions and answers would commit Christianity as a noteworthy ethical platform. Unlike philosophy,Christianity seems to have an answer for everything, and that answer is usually God.