Evolution

[sub]

I'm going to keep this post sweet and simple. I'm a believer in evolution. It just makes sense to me.

 

[Adaptus]

Alea, I have to say, that post was one of the most clear-cut and comprehensible arguments for natural selection I've seen. Very nice.

 

[DiebytheSword]

As I said Alea, I believe in natural selection and micro evolution, those things make sense. Macro evolution does not, and there is no proof that it happens. Micro evolution happens all around us every day.

Why are there no species in transit to other forms today?

Hybrids like the mule, are incapable of reproducing, this represents a small change in the genome as well. How do you then justify the new mutation being to mate with the old creature?

Everything you posted I agree with, except that it somehow gives merit to macro evolution. Fish do not become lizards, lizards do not become birds, lizards do not become mammals. You cannot prove it, neither can science. Wolves can and do become dogs, lizards adapt to the water and become alligators, dinosaurs get lighter and learn how to fly. But the theme is always the same. I'll even spot that we came from apes, but I'll not agree that we came from rodents.

When I have more time I'll post more. Off to work, and overtime

 

[kam!]

[...]

A major problem with evolution lies with this idea of massive mutation to cause macro evolution. The genetic coding required to make legs out of fins, for instance, would requrire massive resequencing. Forget the fact that this would only work in egg laying animals, an animal carrying a mutation of that degree in a live birth scenario would almost assuredly be treated as hostile by the mother's immune system. Forget that even if you got such a mutation, and it was beneficial, what are the chances of such a mutation happening twice? What then are the chances of those two organisms being the appropriate sex? How about the two of them being in the same breeding area? Meeting up and actually procreating? How does the species survive having less than the population needed to not genetically collapse due to cousin lovin'?

These are the questions that plague me when I try to accept evolution as fact. It doesn't satisfactorily solve any of them.

[...]

You're somewhat right with that paragraph.
Macro evolution (or speciation) doesn't happen overnight. There isn't one huge mutation is a fish causing it to grow legs.
For any new species to arise, you need isolation. Because macro evolution happens in many, many little steps.
If there is no isolation, useful traits would be shared equally among a population.

It's not like a fish grows legs and goes to land, it's a fish grows stronger fins that enable him
to take small trips to the land. It can find food there (since plants conquered the land before animals)
and has an advantage over competitors, who die when food in the water is scarce.
Because it doesn't die, it's genes for strong fins are passed on. Millions of years pass, and a large part of the fish population has
strong fins that enable them to go on land for short periods. Now through a mutation,
one of the individuals developes gills that can take a little oxygen from the air, thus it can stay on land a wee bit longer thatn the others.
This trait is again favored and passed on. After many generations every member has better gills.
This cycle goes on and on, the strong fins become longer, bones inside them redistribute or split up,
etc. It's always tiny steps, and it takes millions of years until a trait is established in a population.

 

[Hibiki]

As I said Alea, I believe in natural selection and micro evolution, those things make sense. Macro evolution does not, and there is no proof that it happens. Micro evolution happens all around us every day.

Why are there no species in transit to other forms today?

Hybrids like the mule, are incapable of reproducing, this represents a small change in the genome as well. How do you then justify the new mutation being to mate with the old creature?

Cuc spoilers

Micro Evolution causes Macro Evolution.

When a species continues to adapt to it's surroundings eventually it looses previous traits that it weren't applicable to the current environment. Then the creature reproduces and it's offspring have less of the past traits and more current ones. Repeat until drastic change. This is happening every day right here right now. Even people are evolving at a steady pace.


Evolution has little to do with dinosaurs or carbon dating

Mutation and large drastic changes are not what foster dramatic evolution.

It is an extraordinarily slow process that takes place over thousands and thousands of years not 1 or 2 generations.
Something I think most people aren't paying attention to. Animals don't just suddenly get legs or lungs or whatever. It's "oh my god slower then a hexen loading screen" slow.
Spouting off about how carbon dating is false and dinosaurs aren't birds is all well and good but it really doesn't mean jack when it comes to evolution because unless you just flat out ignore the previous eras you can plainly see the evolutionary trends that came from the Cambrian on upwards.

 

[harSens]

For those who don't want to wait for ages to see evolution happen, luckily there is computer simulation:
http://www.archive.org/details/sims_evolved_virtual_creatures_1994
http://www.genarts.com/karl/papers/siggraph94.pdf

 

[SailorAlea]

As I said Alea, I believe in natural selection and micro evolution, those things make sense. Macro evolution does not, and there is no proof that it happens. Micro evolution happens all around us every day.

Why are there no species in transit to other forms today?

Hybrids like the mule, are incapable of reproducing, this represents a small change in the genome as well. How do you then justify the new mutation being to mate with the old creature?

Please understand that I'm not criticizing you by disagreeing--as I do respect you. I just don't see the distinction--looking at the overall patterns and similarity in DNA, we can, through science, track our common ancestors.

Evolution is the process of one (self-reproduction) or two members of the same species, mating, and a genetic mutation occuring.

A mule is not an example of that, as it is from a male donkey and a female horse (two distinct species) mating. Interspecies breeding is not a mutation.

Mutations are errors in DNA replication. They happen extremely often and the vast, vast, vast majority are harmless. Cells can actually repair damage or errors in DNA.

You're willing to make the leap that humans come from monkeys--as we're both primates. Life, in general, is very similar--at least DNA-wise. Tiny differences in DNA create significant differences. Do you know what the difference in DNA is between a "white" person and a "black" person? There isn't any--none that we can even detect.

Everything you posted I agree with, except that it somehow gives merit to macro evolution. Fish do not become lizards, lizards do not become birds, lizards do not become mammals. You cannot prove it, neither can science. Wolves can and do become dogs, lizards adapt to the water and become alligators, dinosaurs get lighter and learn how to fly. But the theme is always the same. I'll even spot that we came from apes, but I'll not agree that we came from rodents.

You have to look back even further. You say people came from apes--this is very likely. But where did Apes come from? We share a common ancestor. If you go further and further, it's thought that apes "diverged from the Old World monkeys about 25 million years ago" (Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_World_monkey).

Life, in general, is very similar--at least DNA-wise. Tiny differences in DNA create significant differences. Do you know what the difference in DNA is between a "white" person and a "black" person? There isn't any--none that we can even detect.

The complete mapping of the common chimpanzee genome in the summer of 2005 showed the genetic difference with humans to be 1.23% (ie 98.77% similarity).

A mere 1.23% difference in our DNA is the difference between a tiny, poo-flinging monkey and Albert Einstein.

Is it really that hard to believe that since this happened, all mammals don't share a common ancestor? We have many similarities. Warm blood, carry children inside of us, produce milk for the children, have hair--to me, it seems very likely that we ALL evolved from a common ancestor if you go back far enough.

You may not have evolved "from a rodent," but it's likely rodents evolved from a separate off-shoot of the same common ancestor we share.

This doesn't have anything to do with you specifically, Cucumba, I'm just continuing:

The idea of evolution is scary to the idea of religion for many reasons. For one, it directly contradicts numerous creation theories. But this can be reconciled, saying that these stories aren't meant to be taken literally.

But as for philosophy? Evolution has profound impact. If you could prove that, without a doubt, humans share a common ancestor with monkeys, cats, dogs, dolphins, fish, mosquitos, etc--what does this mean for the idea of an eternal soul?

If we evolved from the same thing, why would we magically have souls, and others not? Why doesn't a cat have a soul and a person does, when if you look at the person's parents, parent's, parent's, parent's, parent's, (times 50,000,000), you might end up with a family relation?

It doesn't make sense. And if you take this even further, you'd get back to single celled organism.

Does bacteria have a "soul"? I believe the answer is either "yes, we all have souls; or no, none of us do."

Do I want to believe I have a soul, compared to being, in essence, an organic computer whose existence will cease to exist after I die? Of course. That kind of death scares the hell out of me. But if this isn't true--my body kills millions of these beings with souls every day!

Scary implications. Unless you're arrogant enough to believe that despite evolving from the same thing, humans are somehow special and have souls, unlike animals and less complex life.

 

[DiebytheSword]

This is why I didn't want to get started on this. I come home from a forced overtime situation to find 3 well constructed arguments from a popular theory and I'm one man working against the flow. I seriously don't have time to argue this, lol.

At the risk of repeating myself to death:

STOP LUMPING ME IN WITH CREATIONISM

I find neither argument compelling enought to label one as the truth. I do seperate between faith and reason. I am not so religeously blind that I can't accept scientific fact.

Alea, by that same token, Intelligent Design is scary as hell to Atheist (even agnostic ones) because if proven it puts a terrible burden on the belief system in place.

Spoilers Hib: You're pissing me off. Cut out the sarcasm, you don't need it when you are saying things that are fairly well defendable.

The human genome is also incredibly complex compared to other lifeforms despite being somewhat similar. I'll see if I can find an article to back what I'm remembering, but I did read from a legitmate scientific source that human base pairs do things that no other lifeform on earth does. Each pair creates a protien that the body uses, but the human body also has nestled "subroutines" in the dna. A sequence of four base pairs working together creates another protien, and two of those pairs might produce another, while each base pair creates yet another. I'm fairly sure that was the gist of our difference with other animals. As I said though, I'll need time to find the article again and I just don't have the time at the moment.

For the record, I am arrogant enough to believe that only humans have immortal souls. There is, religeously speaking, a difference.

Now, I'm booked with things to do, and I just got in trouble for not watching the toddler as I wrote this

 

[SailorAlea]

STOP LUMPING ME IN WITH CREATIONISM

That's not in reference to me, is it? I didn't think I was, anyway.

Alea, by that same token, Intelligent Design is scary as hell to Atheist (even agnostic ones) because if proven it puts a terrible burden on the belief system in place.

Well, putting aside the fact that "Intelligent Design" is creationism in disguise, almost universally disregarded as pseudoscience--I can't speak for all agnostics, but as for myself: If I.D. was true, it certainly wouldn't scare me. Knowing for a fact that there's a deity would be a load off many people's shoulders. The world would probably be a better place.

The human genome is also incredibly complex compared to other lifeforms despite being somewhat similar. I'll see if I can find an article to back what I'm remembering, but I did read from a legitmate scientific source that human base pairs do things that no other lifeform on earth does.

I have no doubt that humans are unique in many ways (as are innumerable forms of life on this planet.), but there is an overwhelming similarity between them and even extremely different looking creatures. I believe I posted above--you share 98% (or more) DNA with a one to two foot monkey. We share an incredibly large percentage of our DNA with all primates, and a very large percentage with mammals in general.

This says to me that we evolved from the same thing.. that we have a Universal Common Ancestor.

For the record, I am arrogant enough to believe that only humans have immortal souls. There is, religeously speaking, a difference.

This is what I don't get. Yes, it's a romantic idea that somehow humanity is special, chosen. But if you say "animals don't have souls" while knowing that "people came from monkeys and even earlier forms of life," it doesn't make sense to say that "humans have souls."

Take yourself. Do you have a soul? Yes, you would say. Okay! Did your mother have a soul? Yes, you'd say.

Did your grandfather have a soul? Yes, you'd say. Did your grandfather's father have a soul? Yes..

Keep going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. Times a hundred thousand.

Did your grandfather's great^9999 grandfather have a soul? That being was probably a monkey or even lower life form.

So how can you say that you have a soul and that your primordial ancestors didn't? Doesn't make sense, to me.

 

[DiebytheSword]

That's not in reference to me, is it? I didn't think I was, anyway.

Sadly, it was, I missed the part where you said it didn't pertain to me. My bad, and I sincerely apologize.

Well, putting aside the fact that "Intelligent Design" is creationism in disguise, almost universally disregarded as pseudoscience--I can't speak for all agnostics, but as for myself: If I.D. was true, it certainly wouldn't scare me. Knowing for a fact that there's a deity would be a load off many people's shoulders. The world would probably be a better place.

All well and good, but it still works both ways. I classify people of faith two ways. Those who do so out of habit, and those who do so out of genuine belief. Those who do so out of belief might get shaken by it, but a good number of them either run on faith or dogma. Dogmatics most likley to be shaken, faith not so much. At any rate, many scientific types see any type of alternative to evolution as a return to the dark ages. They seek to disprove out of some need to deface the church (I actually have one friend like this).

As an aside, I don't believe in creationisms typical arguments. Gap theory is fairly close to what I believe, but not an exact match. Note belief: I will accept fact as such when theory is proven fact. I do not accept theory as fact. I will however assign belief to a theory if it has enought merit.

I have no doubt that humans are unique in many ways (as are innumerable forms of life on this planet.), but there is an overwhelming similarity between them and even extremely different looking creatures. I believe I posted above--you share 98% (or more) DNA with a one to two foot monkey. We share an incredibly large percentage of our DNA with all primates, and a very large percentage with mammals in general.

This says to me that we evolved from the same thing.. that we have a Universal Common Ancestor.

Genes
There are estimated 20,000–25,000 human protein-coding genes.[1]

Surprisingly, the number of human genes seems to be less than a factor of two greater than that of many much simpler organisms, such as the roundworm and the fruit fly. However, human cells make extensive use of alternative splicing to produce several different proteins from a single gene, and the human proteome is thought to be much larger than those of the aforementioned organisms.

Most human genes have multiple exons, and human introns are frequently much longer than the flanking exons.

Human genes are distributed unevenly across the chromosomes. Each chromosome contains various gene-rich and gene-poor regions, which seem to be correlated with chromosome bands and GC-content. The significance of these nonrandom patterns of gene density is not well understood. In addition to protein coding genes, the human genome contains thousands of RNA genes, including tRNA, ribosomal RNA, microRNA, and other non-coding RNA genes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome

Nutshell version: WTF?

Genetiscists have been baffled since the genome was mapped. It should have been much more complex in the normal way, instead it behaves differently than anything on earth. This has been explained away as evolution, but you are saying the mechanism of evolution evolved. It's not a very neat explanation. Again, I'll try and find the post mapping comments when I have time.

This is what I don't get. Yes, it's a romantic idea that somehow humanity is special, chosen. But if you say "animals don't have souls" while knowing that "people came from monkeys and even earlier forms of life," it doesn't make sense to say that "humans have souls."

Take yourself. Do you have a soul? Yes, you would say. Okay! Did your mother have a soul? Yes, you'd say.

Did your grandfather have a soul? Yes, you'd say. Did your grandfather's father have a soul? Yes..

Keep going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. And going. Times a hundred thousand.

Did your grandfather's great^9999 grandfather have a soul? That being was probably a monkey or even lower life form.

So how can you say that you have a soul and that your primordial ancestors didn't? Doesn't make sense, to me.

This is borderline talking to a kid talk, so I'll remind you that we are trying to stay civil. Even though I shouted earlier

Beyond that, I believe that there are two things at work here:

There is an animating force.

There is a soul.

These things are seperate, and not interchangeable. If life can simply happen, without animating force, it has not ever happened somewhere where it can be observed. Why does new life not spring up from primordial oozes still with us?

The animating force is what makes a lump of carbon, water, and oxygen move, live, and reproduce. It is present in everything from bacteria (maybe even virii) to Humans.

The soul is something given to us by God, (again, my belief and not fact) and it is only given to humans. Dogs, Dolphins, and other animals with personality might have them too. I think I've seen something written about it theologically, but its been too long since I visited that argument to recall it with any degree of satisfaction. I do however think there is a dividing line between greater and lesser animals, and again, I think our souls are preserved by God when we die, where other animals may have their souls recycled (reincarnation? in my christianity? heresy).

Monkeys and Apes would be greater animals, with animating force and perhaps a soul, but not an immortal soul that gets held over by God. How could a monkey or a dog make decisions that decide its eternal fate? A monkey could no more decide to be closer or further to god than a rock. A human can choose to be evil or good. A human can choose to be close to god, or far from him. That is the purpose of the soul. It is the part of you that will be beside god or as far away from him as possible when you pass (be that hell or back to recycling on earth). That is my "romantic" notion: the ability to choose. Some animals display this, that is why I say there may be a dividing line.

I try very hard to not mix my religeon with my science. It is actually something I pride myself on. While my scientific training concentrates on physics and physical sciences, I do not hesitate to swipe at theories that pretend to be fact when they cannot be proven. This includes some creationism theories: the bible tells us that the world was created, not how. Pretending that you can glean the answer from scripture proves nothing.

This same argument is used in agnostic ways of thinking: it cannot be proven!

Yet you are willing to have faith in science? Everyone has their truths, I think you have yours, and I certainly have mine. You simply choose to believe in evolution though it cannot be proven.

Again, Micro vs Macro. Whenever I mention Evolution alone, it is in the context of Macro evolution. I do believe that types change withing their type, wolves can domesticate and become dogs, and evolve to suit their new parasitic lifestyles. They do not become opposable thumb weilding, ape like, animals to get at the pantry door though.

 

[Garm]

Evolution doesn't happen in the form of a fish suddenly growing legs through a mutation. It is a slow, gradual process, and Alea provided a good example before with that of the eye.

You can't rationally accept "microevolution" and yet simultaneously reject "macroevolution" because the latter is simply the former compounded.

"Macroevolution" is in fact simply a series of successive "microevolutions".

 

[Mountain Dewd]

Pick and choose pseudoscience is the backbone of any Intelligent Design argument.

I encourage everyone to go and watch Penn and Teller's episode on creationism, it's absolutely hilarious.

I don't believe in faith being proven, or justified through science, it just doesn't work, because it always ends with people covering their ears and shouting at the top of their lungs.

 

[SailorAlea]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome

Nutshell version: WTF?

Genetiscists have been baffled since the genome was mapped. It should have been much more complex in the normal way, instead it behaves differently than anything on earth. This has been explained away as evolution, but you are saying the mechanism of evolution evolved. It's not a very neat explanation.

I don't really understand your objection here--like I said before, there are innumerable types of "unique" life. I don't see anything in the article implying we took a "new" mechanism of evolution. You sound bitter/resentful (the "explained away" part) about it--I don't really understand why. Seeking an explanation of empirical observations is what science is..

These things are seperate, and not interchangeable. If life can simply happen, without animating force, it has not ever happened somewhere where it can be observed. Why does new life not spring up from primordial oozes still with us?

Conditions of modern Earth aren't anything like what they were billions of years ago when life evolved. We're created life out of nothing in the laboratory--if you consider viruses alive. The polio virus was completely synthesized out of materials. (http://www.sunysb.edu/ovprpub/tsc/polio.html)

In controlled experiments, we're also recreated what we think were the primordial conditions back on Earth--gas composition, frequent lightning, etc--and found that base amino acids (the "building blocks of life") are created--though we don't yet know how they made the jump to actual life.

A human can choose to be evil or good. A human can choose to be close to god, or far from him. That is the purpose of the soul. It is the part of you that will be beside god or as far away from him as possible when you pass (be that hell or back to recycling on earth). That is my "romantic" notion: the ability to choose. Some animals display this, that is why I say there may be a dividing line.

This is an interesting subject of research--both from a philosophical and biological standpoint. Different philosophers argue that we do, or don't, have free will. But the more we come to understand psychiatry and biology, the more we're seeing that behavior is a result of our genetics.

Part of this is "the blame game," like Jack Thompson--Grand Theft Auto made Johnny shoot up his school! While we can see that's pretty unlikely, genetics are being used to explain all sorts of human behaviors, even accepted in the court room: predispositions to violence, addiction, even sex.

As it relates to liability, culpability and our justice system--this is something that conservatives in general, and especially religious people, dislike. Our contemporary criminal justice system is based on the (not exclusively) Judeo-Christian notion that people choose to commit crimes out of weakness of character, moral flaw, evilness, etc.

However, the more research is done, the more and more we find that behavior is largely influenced by our genetics and environment--factors an individual, at least as a child, has no control over. A child who sees his mother beaten by his father is much more likely to beat his own future wife. A child who has been sexually abused is orders of magnitude more likely to abuse children themselves.

Kids who see violence in the street, live with school shootings and gang warfare in the streets are much more likely to get involved with it.

Does this mean that they're just evil people who decided to be evil, when a "rational" person should've been able to see avoiding that, getting an education, etc--is the way to succeed?

The usual conservative objection to this is that "but not every person abused as a child turns into an abuser himself." Yes, that's true. But you can't account for every factor. Who knows if the children who didn't end up abusing themselves didn't have a better support system to deal with the trauma, or opportunities to better themselves/escape from it? There are far too many factors and no way to perform a controlled study, which is why we're using statistics in the first place.

Our criminal justice system almost exclusively places blame solely on the criminal, rather than the genetics that influenced and the environment that created the criminal. Which is why we have the highest, in both absolute and relative terms, number of people in jail in the US than anywhere on the planet--including communist China, Iran, Russia, you name it.

We end up with a criminal justice system that actually makes people even more hardened criminals--turns a petty thief into a hardened criminal--and punishes scores of drug-users for being poor people looking for an escape FROM that criminal world, without helping to rehabilitate them.

Note that none of this has anything to do with evolution--except in that I don't believe the "ability to choose" you mentioned is actually real. I think we do have free will in a certain sense--but the rosy pink ideal that everyone "chooses" to be either good or evil is ignorant, wishful thinking. It's much easier to simply "blame" someone for choosing to be evil. But it doesn't mean much, and doesn't help either side.

Yet you are willing to have faith in science? Everyone has their truths, I think you have yours, and I certainly have mine.

What exactly are you trying to imply?

Science is the search for truth using empirical observations ("facts") and formulating theories to explain them. What exactly do I have faith in? Empirical, unbiased observation?

You simply choose to believe in evolution though it cannot be proven.

Critics of evolution frequently assert that evolution is "just a theory", with the intent of emphasizing evolution's unproven nature, or of characterizing it as a matter of opinion rather than of fact or evidence. This reflects a misunderstanding of the meaning of theory in a scientific context: whereas in colloquial speech a theory is a conjecture or guess, in science a theory is simply an explanation or model of the world that makes testable predictions. When evolution is used to describe a theory, it refers to an explanation for the diversity of species and their ancestry. An example of evolution as theory is the modern synthesis of Darwinian natural selection and Mendelian inheritance. As with any scientific theory, the modern synthesis is constantly debated, tested, and refined by scientists. There is an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community that it remains the only robust model that accounts for the known facts concerning evolution.[16]

Critics also state that evolution is not a fact. In science, a fact is a verified empirical observation; in colloquial contexts, however, a fact can simply refer to anything for which there is overwhelming evidence. For example, in common usage theories such as "the Earth revolves around the Sun" and "objects fall due to gravity" may be referred to as "facts", even though they are purely theoretical. From a scientific standpoint, therefore, the theory of evolution may be called a "fact" for the same reason that gravity can: under the technical definition, this applies to the observed process of evolution occurring whenever a population of organisms genetically changes over time, whereas under the colloquial definition, this applies to evolutionary theory's well-established nature. Thus, evolution is widely considered both a theory and a fact by scientists.[17][18][19]

Similar confusion is involved in objections that evolution is "unproven";[20] strict proof is possible only in logic and mathematics, not science, so this is trivially true, and no more an indictment of evolution than calling it a "theory" is. The confusion arises, however, in that the colloquial meaning of proof is simply "compelling evidence", in which case scientists would indeed consider evolution "proven". The distinction is an important one in philosophy of science, as it relates to the lack of absolute certainty in all empirical claims, not just evolution.[21]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution (This, far better than I could, documents essentially every objection to evolution).

Again, Micro vs Macro. Whenever I mention Evolution alone, it is in the context of Macro evolution. I do believe that types change withing their type, wolves can domesticate and become dogs, and evolve to suit their new parasitic lifestyles. They do not become opposable thumb weilding, ape like, animals to get at the pantry door though.

You've already acknowledged macro-evolution; through micro-evolution. Yes, species may change a little, creating many slightly different species.

But give those species enough time, enough micro-evolution, and those species are no longer recognizable as the same creature.

 

[harSens]

Again, Micro vs Macro. Whenever I mention Evolution alone, it is in the context of Macro evolution. I do believe that types change withing their type, wolves can domesticate and become dogs, and evolve to suit their new parasitic lifestyles. They do not become opposable thumb weilding, ape like, animals to get at the pantry door though.

This is an acknowledged fact by evolutionists, although not an argument against macro evolution as a whole (I can dig up the Nature article if you're really interested). If the survival conditions remain similar, evolving species can get 'stuck' in some 'local optimum' and won't change a whole lot anymore, since nearly all small changes will undo some aspects that made creature optimally suited to its environment. So wolfs won't become apes, but do have a common ancester that was less specialized to its environment.

 

[VideoJinx]

Here's my take on the faith* of Darwinism in 3 words.

It's B S. Especially Macro Evolution.

It completely relies on the belief* that through "random" mutations within our body we'll eventually have many "positive" mutations causing a being/creature to better adapt in its' environment. This is so unlikely that I consider it "not worth believing in".

If I recall correctly.. when researching for an essay I remember reading about how nearly all "mutations" within a body cause a "self harming" or "disfunctional" result. If, a mutation just so happens to NOT fall under those categories, which is HIGHLY rare according to my memory, it's effect over all in the so called "Evolutionary Theory" would be so insignificant that it would have no real effect.

Example: If a rabbity were to mutate and grow a 3rd leg bone, in order for that leg bone to be of any benefit there would also have to be ASSISTNG mutations which are equally just as rare to occur. When i say assisting mutations, I'm refering to other REQUIRED mutated genes need for the bone mutation to be functional. This includes, other mutated genes that will decide WHERE the bones goes, WHERE the muscles FOR that new bone will develop, How the nerves are setup, where the skin tissue develops, How thick the bone is. ect ect ect.. The odds are so unlikely.... If you don't have the supporting genes to assist that gene then, what you have now is a mutation that has malfunctioned.

Despite all that, what I findto be the most ludicris claim of evolution itself.... is the claim of Life coming from "non-life".

 

[sub]

Jinx, considering you've rejected religion, I'm curious to know how you believe life as we know it came to be.

 

[VideoJinx]

In my opinion life never "came to be", it "always was and is... thus, simply being..

 

[Spunky]

Everything has a beginning. I simply don't believe that everything just was and is. That doesn't make any sense.

 

[sub]

I don't understand.

Life always was? Are you implying that humans were always on Earth? What about dinosaurs? From studying the fossil record, we have determined that dinosaurs did not exist during the same time period that humans did.

 

[Spunky]

I don't understand.

Life always was? Are you implying that humans were always on Earth? What about dinosaurs? From studying the fossil record, we have determined that dinosaurs did not exist during the same time period that humans did.

He doesn't mean just human life, but life in general.