And you wonder why God is going to destroy.....

[Neoteny]

I've read all I need to about evolution.

My conclusion:

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!

You guys got to be joking, right?

Disappointment in it's findings, it's evidence, it's implications? Just trying to clarify.

I've always known about it's implications but what disappoints me is this so called evidence. I was sure that when I read about it that it was going to be more convincing than that. WOW! Was I ever wrong.

EDIT: I wrote the following before seeing this last post ... Now I am SURE you have only read the Creation Institute's "interpretation" of Evolution (or what your fellow Creationists have learned to be evolution). This is NOT true Evolution theory!

I have summarized a few points below, but if you are specific, I can be more specific.



Unless you mean a summary put forward by the Creation Institute, which, I have to say, will be an absolutely inaccurate assessment of evolution.

You could try looking at the Creation thread made by Widowmaker ... around page 89, I believe some real discussion of Evolution was in there.


A very brief and very incomplete summary is that mutations cause small changes. At some point, either "chance" (God, for a Christian) or natural selection (roughly the more "competetive" individual survives to breed) cause one individual to produce more offspring and to pass on its genes. Eventually, if populations are separated, these differances can become greater and greater. Given enough time, these become seperate species. BUT, this can be "speeded up" or changed completely when a big disaster happens (there are several known "disasters" in Earth's history, but also some unexplained events).
Edit: I meant to say that the changes occur very slowly, across a population. BUT, if populations are separated for some reason, the differances begin to diverge and, eventually, you have differant species

The proven parts:
Genes DO decide many things about us, from our eye color to height to even some aspects of our behavior (but only some aspects).

Natural selection does occur, but is not the only force in evolution.

Mutations do occur.

We can see various layers of rock that are formed in various ways. Also, we can actually see and measure earth shifts from earth quakes and other causes. By analyzing the chemical composition of the layers, it is possible to know which sections were once joined.

By comparing known dates to tree rings and carbon dating, we can "back track" much of human history. Carbon 14 is by no means completely accurate, but it gets one in the "ball park" for organic stuff. Other, newer, methods are much more precise. This has been proven, again, by comparing to known information and dates. Humans have been on earth much longer than 4000 years or even 6000 years.


ETC.

These are just a very few, extremely simplified basics. There is much, much more and in much greater detail than I could possibly iterate here.

FYI, page 89 is mostly the evolutionists pissing around. It's actually the page where I posted a Darwin valentine. You may have noticed, it's my favorite thread...

[Iliad]

Isn't the basis for evolution that we evolved from apes or is that just the watered down version?

Nope...not even close.  This is a perfect example of what Player is talking about.

Good answer.

They evolved from a common ancestor. We are not apes per say, we are just in the same family.

Technically, not even the same family, but a common branch going back quite a ways.    We are more closely related to the modern apes than to any other living species, but the differances are still quite significant, of course.  

Last I heard, we were not actually descended from Neanderthals, either.  They were a seperate branch of hominids that coexisted with our ancestors for a time, possibly interacted with them (Clan of the Cave Bear, builds on this idea, though it is of course entirely fiction, except in a few broad geographical & physical details). However, they think they might have been more advanced than previously thought. There are other "branches" of hominids that died out as well on the way to we becoming human.

Pretty much

Old world apes
New world Apes Various branches of humans

VERY, VERY watered down. Humans had branches like the neanderthals and the new world apes had branches too, lemurs if I remember correctly.

So no we didn't evolve from gorillas. And if you're wondering a friend of mine actually asked me
"You believe in evolution? If we evolved from the apes why are there still apes left?"

I shook my head in disgust

[Dancing Mustard]

I've read all I need to about evolution.

My conclusion:

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!

You guys got to be joking, right?

I've read all I need to of the Bible. My conclusion: What kind of fucking psycho whackjob was this God of yours?

Good to see you take the mature route Hecter.

In other words:

Hur Hur, troll post. No evidence or rational arguments from me, just condescencsion, insults, and dumb smileys

Ha ha, sarcastic troll post back at you

Waaa!!! U R not being so mature as me. Dat is uncool. Troll troll troll. lolololololol!!!!!11111

Seriously guys, why do we keep feeding him?
He doesn't want to debate, he wouldn't understand you even if he did, and he's clearly just here to make dumb troll comments and to take an ignorant, patronising tone.

[jonesthecurl]

So no we didn't evolve from gorillas. And if you're wondering a friend of mine actually asked me
"You believe in evolution? If we evolved from the apes why are there still apes left?"

I shook my head in disgust

I was asked this one.
My immediate answer was: "Well, my nephews are descended from my Dad, but he's still around..."

[mandalorian2298]

I've read all I need to about evolution.

My conclusion:

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!

You guys got to be joking, right?

Well if it made sense to YOU, then it could hardly be called a 'scientific theory'.

[comic boy]

I've read all I need to about evolution.

My conclusion:

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!

You guys got to be joking, right?

Disappointment in it's findings, it's evidence, it's implications? Just trying to clarify.

I've always known about it's implications but what disappoints me is this so called evidence. I was sure that when I read about it that it was going to be more convincing than that. WOW! Was I ever wrong.

Look your not the brightest spark are you so you need the crutch of religion to help you through life, no shame in that but dont imagine for one minute that your weakness is somehow a good thing ! Believing in fairy tales is dumb to start with, justifying that belief by rubbishing scientific research is even dumber.

[Snorri1234]

Last I heard, we were not actually descended from Neanderthals, either. They were a seperate branch of hominids that coexisted with our ancestors for a time, possibly interacted with them (Clan of the Cave Bear, builds on this idea, though it is of course entirely fiction, except in a few broad geographical & physical details). However, they think they might have been more advanced than previously thought. There are other "branches" of hominids that died out as well on the way to we becoming human.

A friend of mine is studying archealogy, and he told me about a lot of different homonids who got wiped out (either by others or by natural disasters). It's fascinating stuff really.

[Frigidus]

Last I heard, we were not actually descended from Neanderthals, either. They were a seperate branch of hominids that coexisted with our ancestors for a time, possibly interacted with them (Clan of the Cave Bear, builds on this idea, though it is of course entirely fiction, except in a few broad geographical & physical details). However, they think they might have been more advanced than previously thought. There are other "branches" of hominids that died out as well on the way to we becoming human.

A friend of mine is studying archealogy, and he told me about a lot of different homonids who got wiped out (either by others or by natural disasters). It's fascinating stuff really.

I've always wondered how our civilization might have acted towards our relatives if one of them had survived. Would make for interesting stuff.

[MeDeFe]

Last I heard, we were not actually descended from Neanderthals, either. They were a seperate branch of hominids that coexisted with our ancestors for a time, possibly interacted with them (Clan of the Cave Bear, builds on this idea, though it is of course entirely fiction, except in a few broad geographical & physical details). However, they think they might have been more advanced than previously thought. There are other "branches" of hominids that died out as well on the way to we becoming human.

A friend of mine is studying archealogy, and he told me about a lot of different homonids who got wiped out (either by others or by natural disasters). It's fascinating stuff really.

I've always wondered how our civilization might have acted towards our relatives if one of them had survived. Would make for interesting stuff.

Probably by waging war on and having sex with them, in any given order or at the same time.

[Juan_Bottom]

So no we didn't evolve from gorillas. And if you're wondering a friend of mine actually asked me
"You believe in evolution? If we evolved from the apes why are there still apes left?"

I shook my head in disgust

I was asked this one.
My immediate answer was: "Well, my nephews are descended from my Dad, but he's still around..."

Funny, but you did at least partially explain that part of evolution to them, right?

[jonesthecurl]

Oh, this was a doorstep JW. I'll tell you about some of my discussions with those types another time.

[PLAYER57832]

Thanks Player. You've given me some good info.

There are some people who believe that evolution and creation CAN co-exsist and from what I gather, it makes sense.

Actually, most Christians by far believe both. The exceptions are some (not all) of the "fundamentalist" churches and a few obscur others. Of course, that does not mean everyone is an expert.

....but there seems to be very poor evidence connecting us to apes. Even if it were true, I don't see how it could ever possibly be proven.

While the ape/human connection gives the fundamentalist Christians the most trouble, it actually IS pretty well proven. I cannot site each fossil by name or anything ... it has been quite a while since I was in school (but I most definitely analyzed it at the time! I cannot explain Calculus off the top of my head now, either ... but I definitely know it works!). The proof originally came just by looking at the forms. The apes are more like us than any other animal, so it would make sense that they were our closest relatives. (not direct, though ... more like many, many, many times cousins) Fossils were found that seemed to show the transition. Some of these we now know are "side channels". Neandrothals are one of those that scientists originally thought was a direct descendent, but which we now know are cousins. "Closer" cousins than the modern apes, but "cousins", not "grandfathers".

Where Creationists step in is to say "wait, but you don't have a complete record" OR they point to examples like the Neandrothals and say "well, see, they were wrong..". BUT, there are two problems with those criticisms. The main criticism is that it came from science itself. Science DOES change, it is self-correcting to a large extent. So, when Creationists say (or said) that the Neadrothals were a side branch and not a direct descendent and that proves evolution "wrong" (and whether this is a current argument of the Creation Science Institute or not, it was a major argument back a few years ago, so it makes a decent example) Well, it is not quite the truth. The second is that they place an impossibly high standard of belief. In reality, NO ONE with any real scientific sense will say that Evolution (big "E" ... that is, the full theory) is absolutely and entirely correct. In fact, they will say that it will almost certainly go through changes as we gain more information. BUT, here is the thing. Creainist "scientists do not put forward real and possible alternative explanations. They denounce Evolution based upon very minor or even actually irrelevant details, but somehow forget to mention the glaring and blatant errors in their theories. Things like there is NO WAY (and this is fact!) that Noah's flood explains the "mixing" of fossils. It just did not happen that way! Leave aside that science CAN come up with some pretty hard to dispute dates (note I did not say absolutely certain, though the idea of the Earth being only 6000 years old is pretty much impossible), Just looking at how floods work shows us that this is not how all those fossils were deposited. Understand, as I said before, some fossils absolutely were deposited by water -- rivers, floods, etc. BUT, not anywhere near all of them.

Anyway, now that we know far more about genetics and other sorts of analysis, we know that we are truly quite closely related to the modern apes.

As for genes, I've always believed it as it's a very obvious occurance.

I am not sure I understand what you mean here?

All and all I guess like many others I DO believe in both evolution and creation but not to the extent of others.

LIfe and science are all about learning. As I said before, no one with scientific sense will say that everything taught as evolution right now will absolutely be true without error. In fact, any good teacher will tell you just that. However, the problem I have with the Creation Science Institute is that they just plain put forward so much outright false information ... and, unfortunately, because they do so through the churches (including church controlled schools), they get away with it. Study, find problems, seek answers ... that is science. BUT, the minute you step from imagining possibilities and seeking truth to DEMANDING that your possibilities MUST be true ...and discarding anything that disagrees, then you step from truth to lies. The Creation Science Institute has done that again and again. That is why I am so antagonistic against them. They defoul science AND Christianity both!

Just to clarify, the early Jews, modern Jews and most Christians today see Genesis as a non-scientific true story. The day is God's day and we have no idea how long God's day is. Further, the point was that God made the Earth, et al. Not that he did so in 7 Earth revolutions. Evolution is one possibility. As more evidence mounts, the chances that a completely differant theory will prove true diminish quickly. Possible, yes, but not probable. In fact, evolution (small e ... the idea that things change over time) is fact, not theory and is even observable today. In between ... various "shades of grey".

Gotta go. If you have specific questions, maybe I or someone else can answer. As I said, I am not an evolution expert. I am a scientist and have a good general background, but it was a while ago that I was in school. However, others here are actually experts.

[Neoteny]

PLAYER, you need to realize that if you just assert that you are an expert, be it in demolitions or evolution, it's automatically true. Try it.

I am an expert at tantric sex. I can orgasm for about 8 hours.

That was easy!

[hecter]

PLAYER, you need to realize that if you just assert that you are an expert, be it in demolitions or evolution, it's automatically true. Try it.

I am an expert at tantric sex. I can orgasm for about 8 hours.

That was easy!

Would you like to go to the back room for about an hour for a quickie?

[Neoteny]

PLAYER, you need to realize that if you just assert that you are an expert, be it in demolitions or evolution, it's automatically true. Try it.

I am an expert at tantric sex. I can orgasm for about 8 hours.

That was easy!

Would you like to go to the back room for about an hour for a quickie?

Bring those pears and I'll consider it.

[PLAYER57832]

PLAYER, you need to realize that if you just assert that you are an expert, be it in demolitions or evolution, it's automatically true. Try it.

I am an expert at tantric sex. I can orgasm for about 8 hours.

That was easy!

When we use the tactics of our "enemies", we become them.

Truth is the one thing I have. Truth and my faith, but I don't expect my personal faith to mean anything to anyone with differant beliefs.

Or, to put it another way, the more you know, the less you realize you know ...

I am not completely ignorant, but I am not an expert, either.