EVOLUTION

They teach evolution in school - it must be true.

The creation story is in the bible - is the bible false?

Did God make us from the dirt, man and women?

How about the alien theory

Truth is - we don't know - but what do you think?

Hmm...that's a good one, instead of do you believe this or that, and arguing about it-just what do you believe?

I believe that I don't know, and I believe that no one else has the all true answer either.

However, I do believe in life on other planets. I also believe that there was/is someone that created us, or the animals that we evolved from. This could very well be what we consider an "Alien".
What I know for sure is that no one has the whole truth and nothing but the truth...

The fossil evidence really points to evolution.
Feathered dinosaurs and the change of man's bones throughout the last 2 million years make this fairly clear. Not to mention it seems to me that evolution is far more rational then a hypothetical God or alien.

But regardless there IS the possibility that God or aliens planted the fossils to mislead us. But I think that'd be an absurdity.

The fossil evidence includes :
- a feathered dinosaur showing an example of dino to bird evolution
- small mammal fossils during dinosaur times, evolution would dictate that since large mammals cannot coexist with large carnivorous dinos for long
- numerous man findings show very many different species of man who are either cousins or our direct ancestors, they're traits are similar to ours and evolution accounts for the differences.

There's some more.. but I have gtg.

Myself, I'm an evolutionist. Yay for the fish with legs!!

Not to disagree - because we really don't know - all is theory. The earth has died and been reborn many times. Each time, a new a set of animals have appeared. That could account for the fossils. And then again. We have caused certain animals to evolve, we call them domesticated. Evolution can be done and does happen.

I think it only fair I share my theory and give you the opportunity to agree or disagree or further express your view point.

How do you take an ape to human form with the ability to build bombs that can destroy the very earth it lives on? I believe aliens from a dying planet wishing to save themselves planted their DNA into the ape. Possibly this other planet was Mars. The Gnostics believed in a false god and a True God. This is how they explained us being so out of balance with the rest of nature. The false god being our creator, while the true God created the rest of nature. I believe the Gnostics false god is our true ancestor "The alien" Just a theory - But feel free to comment.

Well that's an interesting twist on our origins

Certainly the genetic comparison between us, modern apes and our potential ancestors don't show anything so different that needs explaining by aliens.
Besides, intelligent apes turning into human geniuses is not so unbelievable.
The more intelligent, adaptable humans live and the less intelligent die (possible explanation for the fall of neanderthals).
I think the humans we have today, so skilled at killing others, is a natural and inevitable development. Those humans who were more peaceful and harmless, are now dead.

Well, okcity, that's an interesting take on it. Very different from anything I've heard. As it stands, human origin is unknown, so who's to say it's not a possibility?

I'm waiting to see what kind of theories the scientific community will come up with now that the Human Genome Project is just about complete. It's not my area of study, but I do find the topic of human origin quite fascinating, so I try to keep up with new information and have taken courses (as electives) that I felt would give me a bit of info as far as evolution is concerned.

The development of our brain over the last 2,000 years leads me to easily accept the mental gap between the human species and our evolved ape cousins (i.e. chimps). (By the way, there is only a 98% difference between our DNA and DNA of chimpanzees). With the brain being such an energy sapping organ, it was by quite a narrow margin that our species survived when other hominid species became extinct.

There is a well written book on the subject that I read last year regarding brain evolution. I'll try to dig up the tittle and author for ya.

(I write these views with no offense intended towards those who believe in the Biblical representation of origin, or any other faiths that are adverse to the notion that humans came from ape-like creatures)

Regarding the human origin story in the Bible, a friend of mine (very successful professional who was a Christian) explained that maybe its purpose was to simply give the "people of God" a common origin. After all, the Bible is a book of faith, not science. His take is that God isn't going to explain to us, in a book of faith, the biological, chemical, and physical details of origin, or else the book would be thousands of volumes long. Those things are left for us humans to discover. A simple story of origin, so that the people would have a sense of beginning, was good enough.

For the record, I am an agnostic when it comes to god. I do consider myself to be spiritual, just not a religious sense.

Um, ok, I think my mind was dyslexic or something. Above I wrote that there is "a 98% difference between our DNA and DNA of chimpanzees." It should be: our DNA and chimps' DNA are 98% alike, making it a 2% difference between our DNAs. Oops.

Anyway, "Ascent of the Mind" by William H. Calvin is a good read. There is another one as well, with the words "Ice Age" included in the tittle, but for the life of me, I can't remember it. If I do, I'll post the tittle and author.

I would just like to bring my personal opinion and a bunch of facts to this conversation.

I believe evolution is a pagan religion masquerading as science.

"Missing Link" Still Missing

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"Did dinos soar? Imaginations certainly took flight over Archaeoraptor Liaoningensis, a birdlike fossil with a meat-eater's tail that was spirited out of northeastern China, 'discovered' at a Tucson, Arizona, gem and mineral show last year, and displayed at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. Some 110,000 visitors saw the exhibit, which closed January 17; millions more read about the find in November's National Geographic. Now paleontologists are eating crow. Instead of 'a true missing link' connecting dinosaurs to birds, the specimen appears to be a composite, its unusual appendage likely tacked on by a Chinese farmer, not evolution.
"Archaeoraptor is hardly the first 'missing link' to snap under scrutiny. In 1912, fossil remains of an ancient hominid were found in England's Piltdown quarries and quickly dubbed man's ape-like ancestor. It took decades to reveal the hoax."

U.S. News & World Report, February 14, 2000

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"Darwin admitted that millions of 'missing links,' transitional life forms, would have to be discovered in the fossil record to prove the accuracy of his theory that all species had gradually evolved by chance mutation into new species. Unfortuately for his theory, despite hundreds of millions spent on searching for fossils worldwide for more than a century, the scientists have failed to locate a single missing link out of the millions that must exist if their theory of evolution is to be vindicated."

Grant R. Jeffery, The Signature of God

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"There are gaps in the fossil graveyard, places where there should be intermediate forms, but where there is nothing whatsoever instead. No paleontologist . . .denies that this is so. It is simply a fact. Darwin's theory and the fossil record are in conflict."

David Berlinsky

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"Scientists concede that their most cherished theories are based on embarrassingly few fossil fragments and that huge gaps exist in the fossil record."

Time magazine, November 7, 1977

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"The evolutionists seem to know everything about the missing link except the fact that it is missing."

G. K. Chesterton

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Evolutionary Fraud

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"Charles Dawson, a British lawyer and amateur geologist, announced in 1912 his discovery of pieces of a human skull and an apelike jaw in a gravel pit near the town of Piltdown, England . . .Dawson's announcement stopped the scorn cold. Experts instantly declared Piltdown Man (estimated to be 300,000 to one million years old) the evolutionary find of the century. Darwin's missing link had been identified.

"Or so it seemed for the next 40 or so years. Then, in the early fifties . . .scientists began to suspect misattribution. In 1953, that suspicion gave way to a full-blown scandal: Piltdown Man was a hoax. Radiocarbon tests proved that its skull belonged to a 600-year old woman, and its jaw to a 500-year old orangutan from the East Indies."

Our Times: The Illustrated History of the 20th Century

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"The Piltdown Man fraud wasn't an isolated incident. The famed Nebraska Man was derived from a single tooth, which was later found to be from an extinct pig. Java Man, Found in the early 20th century, was nothing more than a piece of skull, a fragment of a thigh bone, and three molar teeth. The rest came from the deeply fertile imaginations of plaster of Paris workers. Java Man is now regarded as fully human. Heidelberg Man came from a jawbone, a large chin section, and a few teeth. Most Scientists reject the jawbone because it's similar to that of modern man. Still, many evolutionists believe that he's 250,000 years old. No doubt they pinpointed his birthday with carbon dating. However, Time magazine (June 11, 1990) published a science article subtitled, "Geologists show that carbon dating can be way off." And don't look to Neanderthal Man for any evidence of evolution. He died of exposure. His skull was exposed as being fully human, not ape. Not only was his stooped posture found to be caused by disease, but he spoke and was artistic and religious."

Ray Comfort, The Evidence Bible

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"Shells from living snails were carbon dated as being 27,000 years old."

Science magazine, vol. 224, 1984 (emphasis added)

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You guys remember that chart plastered on the walls of your high school science classes? The one depicting the gradual evolution from monkey to man? Check this out:

Evolution: True Science Ficiton

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Lucy: Nearly all experts agree Lucy was just a 3 foot tall chimpanzee.

Heidelberg Man: Built from a jawbone that was conceded by many to be quite human.

Nebraska Man: Scientifically built up from one tooth, later found to be the tooth of an extinct pig.

Piltdown Man: The jawbone turned out to belong to a modern ape.

Peking Man: Supposedly 500,000 years old, but all evidence has disappeared.

Neanderthal Man: At the Int'l Congress of Zoology (1958) Dr. A.J.E. Cave said his examintaion showed that this famous skeleton found in France over 50 years ago is that of an old man who suffered from arthritis.

New Guinea Man: Dates way back to 1970. This species has been found in the region just north of Australia.

Cro-Magnon Man: One of the earliest and best established fossils is at least equal in physique and brain capacity to modern man . . .so what's the difference?

Modern Man: This genius thinks we came from a monkey.

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Here's something you guys might be interested in looking at.

$250,000 REWARD

Offered by Dr. Kent Hovind to:

"Anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution."

(See http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=250k)

Erm, this statement is found on the same page you posted a link to:

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Proponents of the theory of evolution would do well to admit that they believe in evolution, but they do not know that it happened the way they teach. They should call evolution their "faith" or "religion," and stop including it in books of science. Give up faith in the silly religion of evolutionism, and trust the God of the Bible (who is the Creator of this universe and will be your Judge, and mine, one day soon) to forgive you and to save you from the coming judgment on man's sin.

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Aside from the fact that I find it quite funny, the paragraph is also contradictory. You will excuse me if I choose not to put much weight on the opinions of "Creation Science Evangelism."

I hope people realize that natural science is all about theory, not proof (that's math). Putting it very simply, it is our best objective and logical attempt to figuring out how our world works based on applying the scientific method. One of the properties of a scientific theory is that it is open to revision in light of new evidence, or fact.

Please look up the meaning of 'scientific theory' or 'scientific law.' Here's a start:

http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/evo/blfaq_sci_law.htm

There is a link on the bottom of that page called Hypotheses, Theories and Facts. Wouldn't be a bad idea to read that, either. Better yet, have discussions with someone who is in their advanced years of scientific study.

(sigh) Frankly, I'm getting tired of the ABSOLUTE EVIDENCE ISN'T FOUND, THEREFORE IT MUST BE FALSE attitude. To hold the view of absolutism is to misunderstand science. 'If I don't know for sure, then it is not true' is dogmatic and more religion-like than 'If I don't know for sure, then the fact is I don't know, and therefore will go with the best objective evidence available.'

Now, regarding those specific fossils - I remember three (there might have been more) of those fossils mentioned above because they were brought up in an archaeology class I took. I'll pick on one:

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Lucy: nearly all experts agree Lucy was just a three foot tall chimpanzee.

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???? Lucy has been categorized into both a specific class and species - Australopithecus afarensis. Chimpanzees are Pan troglodytes.

There are more that I found funny, but I'll leave it alone and suggest that you look up the latest reliable information regarding some of those fossils if you have the time. And yes, it is true that a few of those fossils have had too much hype only to be discovered that they weren't what they were thought to represent. Which brings me to the next topic:

A lot of mistakes regarding evidence seem to dominate the above quotes. Of course there are mistakes. Probably more mistakes and hoaxes than accurate conclusions, especially when, similar to the race for the cure for AIDS, there has been (and obviously still is) a race in finding breakthroughs regarding Primate origins. Still, hoaxes and mistakes do not refute sound evidence that has been accepted enough by the scientific community for it to be studied academically as such. Are you aware that there is already a way to map out our species' early migration patterns using DNA samples from indigenous populations? And evolutionist or not, us homos (homo sapiens for those who won't get that) are classified into the order of Primates... look up any internationally accepted scientific journal.

Regarding Darwin, it isn't really fair to expect him to have figured everything out back then when we are still working on that to this day. Here is an article by Scientific American.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=
000757B0-ACF7-1F09-97AE80A84189EEDF

Anyway, damnit, I've blabbed and blabbed again . I'm going for brunch now.



ps. Aside from attacking the theory of evolution, strongclad, what is your stance regarding origin?

On Darwin's statements : the preclude to Darwin's book clearly states he may be wrong. In fact, he is wrong in many places (I believe he asserted neanderthals were our ancestors). However, the principle his theory, that beings evolve by removing less adaptable organisms is pretty much as proven as it gets.

On the "no missing link" argument : the odds of finding a "missing link" are low, due to the fact fossilization is a very rare process to occur and the only reason we find other species is because there are so many species that are only cousins but not direct ancestors.
Secondly, it is possible to find a missing link, yet impossible effectively to prove it. This does not mean we have not found missing links however.

Finally, the way genes work fits in *perfectly* with evolutionary theory. One is succesful, hence passes on his genes, but with a few random mutations thrown in for the odd chance that it is beneficial.
Those with good mutations thrive, passing on the mutations themselves.
This would be a natural consequence of our current knowledge on genetics.

Finally, with no evolutionary theory, explaining genes becomes a lot more difficult. Since the current genetic theory implies evolution is true to some extent, if evolution is faulse our gene theories must be false too. Unfortunately, they are pretty much rock solid at this point.

I believe that when I was a child Pluto was the last planet in our solar system, then they discovered another one after it.

The planets are slowly but steadily orbiting around the sun and at the same time slowly and steadily moving closer to the sun. When the earth was created it was at that right moment in space that the earth was at a perfect distance to the sun that life started forming becuase of the warm/hot climates. In time the earth started getting hotter, they called it global warming. Every year the earth will get hotter and hotter until it is Mars. Then the planet next to earth in the soloar system will start to form life the same way....maybe this time the humanoids will have bigger heads. Didn't they say that mars had signs that there was life and water at one point in it's infinite existance........

I beleive that is what has happened and will continue to happen until there are no more planets in our solar system and it will just happen somewhere else.

There is no God and there is no Devil........That is a bunch of bullshit that was fed to the masses a long long time ago to give people some sort of meaning or else what is the point right.........that's it. There is no point to life but what you make it......You either choose to be good or bad to other's.......

Fuck it okcitykid....you don't need religion to survive you only need your own spirit and will. That's what will get you to the end and nothing else.

I beleive we are all connected because we were all created out of nothing, we just formed one day and evolved and that's it.......in the back of our minds we were all nothing once......and now we still are but with arms and legs so we can be nothing in different places......

Fuck it, when this shit house goes up in flames......I'm gonna go feeling like I'm not missing anything.

The last thing I've learned on the DNA thing is that Eve came first, about a 1000 years before Adam. I don't know how that is possible. Neither do those who came up with the findings.

"Fuck it okcitykid....you don't need religion to survive you only need your own spirit and will. That's what will get you to the end and nothing else.

I beleive we are all connected because we were all created out of nothing, we just formed one day and evolved and that's it.......in the back of our minds we were all nothing once......and now we still are but with arms and legs so we can be nothing in different places......

Fuck it, when this shit house goes up in flames......I'm gonna go feeling like I'm not missing anything. "

Oh great nothingness, how great art thou, for you are nothing, not anything at all.