Did Evolution Really Happen?

[Aero]

You can question evolution, but offer your own ideas. Claiming everyone else is full of shit isn't a good argument.

 

[GreenTea]

As much as I would like to write a long lengthy essay explaining sides that both support and do not support the evolutionary theory - because I'm completely neutral, I neither claim to believe nor disbelieve in this theory - I'm sure you would attack everything I say with the most absurd claims.

PS: universities develop your critical thinking ability and do not blindly teach you anything. You would know how much research goes behind everything if you attended a university.

 

[Lurker]

Clearly species do adapt. But to change entirely? Well, there's evidence for and against. That's all I have to say about that.

 

[SkepticCat]

PS: universities develop your critical thinking ability and do not blindly teach you anything. You would know how much research goes behind everything if you attended a university.

Problem seems to be it's the Masons who define what one can "think critically" about.

The oldest known humanoid skeleton 'we have found' is nicknamed 'Lucy'. I'll leave it to you drawing conclusions, if any.

 

[observer]

evolution or natural selection can be observed and proven in real time.
also we can and have by eugenics and selective breeding altered our own species.
so yeah , evolution is not a lie. and it fits perfectly. i haven't seen a valid argument against it

 

[grateful servant]

> Complex integration
http://tomatobubble.com/integrated_complexity_evolution.html

From the article:

1. The 20th Century discovery of DNA codes which program our physical traits makes Darwin's problem of explaining away integrated complexity a million times even more complex. 2. Imagine car parts blindly "evolving" one at a time and "randomly" integrating themselves during a billion-year tornado. That is essentially what "educated" evolutionists, without a shred of observable precedent, believe to have happened in the living world.

 

[grateful servant]

Clearly species do adapt. But to change entirely? Well, there's evidence for and against. That's all I have to say about that.

I don't really follow the evolution debate, but I'm wondering what's the evidence for a species changing entirely?

 

[Violette]

Evolution is false. Everything in nature has a tendency to decay over time we're not evolving into higher beings. Life is so specific because we have an intelligent designer, not because enough time allowed creature to evolve into the necessary parts needed for them to exist. Even single celled organisms are very complex, without any of those functioning parts it wouldn't survive.

 

[Orwell's mentor]

> Complex integration
http://tomatobubble.com/integrated_complexity_evolution.html

From the article:

1. The 20th Century discovery of DNA codes which program our physical traits makes Darwin's problem of explaining away integrated complexity a million times even more complex. 2. Imagine car parts blindly "evolving" one at a time and "randomly" integrating themselves during a billion-year tornado. That is essentially what "educated" evolutionists, without a shred of observable precedent, believe to have happened in the living world.

I've heard of this example before, and it does shed some light on the idea of evolution, and its' incredulous notion that we evolved from...whatever. There's a good documentary with Lee Strobel (who was first an atheist) and scientists that can be found on YT (sorry, no access here), that gives a good argument for creationism. It quotes Darwin in his book "Origin of Species" as stating:

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not be possibly have formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory would break down".

The documentary then describes the flagellum, and how there's no explanation for it in his theory. Also, Darwin started out as a Christian but lost his faith when his eldest daughter died: http://creation.com/charles-darwins-mystery-illness

 

[Kung Fu]

What do you mean by evolution exactly?

 

[Mr.Grieves]

Look at this animal

now look at this animal

What separates a domestic dog from a wolf is a few thousand years of domestication. What separates a mini-pug from your average domestic dogs is a few hundred years of extremely selective breeding, if even that. The wild variance of strange domestic dogs which obviously have no place in natural ecosystems is as a result of breeding programs imposed on them by humans; breeding in traits they find aesthetically pleasing/endearing, but are actually natural disadvantages. This is a clear example of mankind harnessing and in a sense usurping the evolutionary process, and again, we're talking spans of a few hundred, a few thousand years, rather than hundreds of millions of billions of years, a scale of time many humans have trouble comprehending.

There is a great deal of evidence to support the transition of one species to another, the transition from an aquatic animal to a land animal, etc. Some of these 'transitional' species, which are clearly in a very slow state of transformation from one kind of an animal into another as a result of their breeding and environment, are quite observable today, though some might deny it.

The question I'd ask creationists who say Evolution is bunkum, couldn't possibly have happened, and say that we're clearly 'manufactured' or 'engineered' by God, is why did God do such a bad job on us, his most prized creation?
The Bible says- and correct me if I'm wrong here- that God is all-seeing and all-mighty, and that we, his most beloved creation, were made in his image. But far from all seeing, we don't see particularly well at all. Far from all mighty, we're actually quite weak. Creationists like to harp on about the beauty of the human eye, and how could the human eye in all its majesty possibly come to be without the help of the divine, but the human eye in reality is pretty crap.

It's not the worst to be absolutely certain, a lot of creatures have got it a lot worse than us, but we've got what, a 150 degree field of vision, really limited distance-vision, unimpressive short-range vision, a really limited color-spectrum open to our perception; the world may be massively more beautiful than we even realize, as just as a color-blind person potentially can't perceive greens and blues and purples, there are wide ranges of colors and spectrum that many animals have access too that we don't. There are innumerable creatures- mammals, birds, insects, fish, who see WAY better than we do; who have three-hundred-and-sixty degree fields of vision, who see and react to colors we can't even perceive, who could count the hairs on a fly's ass (if they knew how to count) or spot a mouse in a field from miles away. Who can see at night with no problem, who can see through cloudy water with no problem, all things we can't begin to do.

We're also not particularly strong by any stretch of the imagination. If someone works their whole adult life to be a body-builder, they -might- achieve the strength of your average great ape. Chimpanzees, those endearing and comparatively diminutive critters we like to put in sports movies, are WAY stronger than the average human; if you were to put Georges St-Pierre in an MMA ring with a pissed off alpha chimp, you can rest assured all my money is going on the chimp.

There are animals whose sense of smell massively outstrips our own, whose sense of touch massively outstrips our own, whose ability to endure damage and heal themselves massively outstrips our own, who can regrow lost appendages!

As a species, nothing about us is comparatively impressive except:
A.) we stand upright
B.) we have nifty hands/thumbs
C.) we're exceedingly clever.

It's our cleverness , and our ability to employ our cleverness with these awesome hands of ours, which has made us so successful an animal, but both our cleverness and our ability to employ it have been developing over millions of years, and we can see this in our own ancient history. We know that ancient peoples didn't look like us; that much like the transition from wolf to dog, we're domesticating ourselves, folks increasingly less and less hairy as surviving the elements becomes less and less of a challenge, growing taller and leaner than we've been in the past, likely due to aesthetic preference in mate selection rather than to fill any natural need.

I know I'm never going to convince someone who believes the world is only 5 or 6 thousand years old that evolution is real, but when you allow facts into your life, and acknowledge that life itself has been kicking around the planet for 3 or 4 billion years, it's a lot easier to conceive how- given what we ourselves can do to domestic dogs in our incredibly brief lifetimes- nature could have PROFOUND effects on the development of organisms over eons.

 

[Loki]

Look at this animal

now look at this animal

What separates a domestic dog from a wolf is a few thousand years of domestication. What separates a mini-pug from your average domestic dogs is a few hundred years of extremely selective breeding, if even that. The wild variance of strange domestic dogs which obviously have no place in natural ecosystems is as a result of breeding programs imposed on them by humans; breeding in traits they find aesthetically pleasing/endearing, but are actually natural disadvantages. This is a clear example of mankind harnessing and in a sense usurping the evolutionary process, and again, we're talking spans of a few hundred, a few thousand years, rather than hundreds of millions of billions of years, a scale of time many humans have trouble comprehending.

There is a great deal of evidence to support the transition of one species to another, the transition from an aquatic animal to a land animal, etc. Some of these 'transitional' species, which are clearly in a very slow state of transformation from one kind of an animal into another as a result of their breeding and environment, are quite observable today, though some might deny it.

The question I'd ask creationists who say Evolution is bunkum, couldn't possibly have happened, and say that we're clearly 'manufactured' or 'engineered' by God, is why did God do such a bad job on us, his most prized creation?
The Bible says- and correct me if I'm wrong here- that God is all-seeing and all-mighty, and that we, his most beloved creation, were made in his image. But far from all seeing, we don't see particularly well at all. Far from all mighty, we're actually quite weak. Creationists like to harp on about the beauty of the human eye, and how could the human eye in all its majesty possibly come to be without the help of the divine, but the human eye in reality is pretty crap.

It's not the worst to be absolutely certain, a lot of creatures have got it a lot worse than us, but we've got what, a 150 degree field of vision, really limited distance-vision, unimpressive short-range vision, a really limited color-spectrum open to our perception; the world may be massively more beautiful than we even realize, as just as a color-blind person potentially can't perceive greens and blues and purples, there are wide ranges of colors and spectrum that many animals have access too that we don't. There are innumerable creatures- mammals, birds, insects, fish, who see WAY better than we do; who have three-hundred-and-sixty degree fields of vision, who see and react to colors we can't even perceive, who could count the hairs on a fly's ass (if they knew how to count) or spot a mouse in a field from miles away. Who can see at night with no problem, who can see through cloudy water with no problem, all things we can't begin to do.

We're also not particularly strong by any stretch of the imagination. If someone works their whole adult life to be a body-builder, they -might- achieve the strength of your average great ape. Chimpanzees, those endearing and comparatively diminutive critters we like to put in sports movies, are WAY stronger than the average human; if you were to put Georges St-Pierre in an MMA ring with a pissed off alpha chimp, you can rest assured all my money is going on the chimp.

There are animals whose sense of smell massively outstrips our own, whose sense of touch massively outstrips our own, whose ability to endure damage and heal themselves massively outstrips our own, who can regrow lost appendages!

As a species, nothing about us is comparatively impressive except:
A.) we stand upright
B.) we have nifty hands/thumbs
C.) we're exceedingly clever.

It's our cleverness , and our ability to employ our cleverness with these awesome hands of ours, which has made us so successful an animal, but both our cleverness and our ability to employ it have been developing over millions of years, and we can see this in our own ancient history. We know that ancient peoples didn't look like us; that much like the transition from wolf to dog, we're domesticating ourselves, folks increasingly less and less hairy as surviving the elements becomes less and less of a challenge, growing taller and leaner than we've been in the past, likely due to aesthetic preference in mate selection rather than to fill any natural need.

I know I'm never going to convince someone who believes the world is only 5 or 6 thousand years old that evolution is real, but when you allow facts into your life, and acknowledge that life itself has been kicking around the planet for 3 or 4 billion years, it's a lot easier to conceive how- given what we ourselves can do to domestic dogs in our incredibly brief lifetimes- nature could have PROFOUND effects on the development of organisms over eons.

Based purely on a sight examination, there is a far larger leap in design between a Wolf and a Shitzu than there is between a chimp and a human imo. I love taking pictures of apes (at the zoo, I don't live near actual apes or anything) and so I spend a lot of time examining their faces and body language and movement and such, and it really baffles me how so many people think there is no possible way we are closely related to them. We are so similar, especially when you look at infants of both species.

 

[rainerann]

I think it's a lie but I can't really prove it

I don't think it's a lie. I don't think it is a completed subject. Therefore, I disagree with presenting evolution as complete fact. I think Richard Dawkins suggested that evolution was basically fact in one of his documentaries. I find him to lack a lot of objectivity as a scientist.

Evolution is field of scientific study. It is a continued investigation. Therefore, I skeptically consider evolutionary theory conservatively because it is a field of study that might undergo change in the next 10, 20, 30 years. I keep my ears open, but try to remain objective about it.

 

[rainerann]

> Complex integration
http://tomatobubble.com/integrated_complexity_evolution.html

From the article:

1. The 20th Century discovery of DNA codes which program our physical traits makes Darwin's problem of explaining away integrated complexity a million times even more complex. 2. Imagine car parts blindly "evolving" one at a time and "randomly" integrating themselves during a billion-year tornado. That is essentially what "educated" evolutionists, without a shred of observable precedent, believe to have happened in the living world.

This reminds me of a theory from the intelligent design camp called "irreducible complexity." It was a long time ago that I was looking into this, but basically what it means is that when you reduce a system down to its simplest form, it still remains too complex to have evolved. Our blood clotting system is an example. How does a blood clotting system evolve? One end of the spectrum you become a hemophiliac, and on the other end of the spectrum you die of a pulmonary embolism.

Therefore, I believe some components of evolution, but that they do always reach of point of irreducible complexity that suggests that evolutionary theory is not an independent study of the origin of life.

 

[Etagloc]

What do you mean by evolution exactly?

Here I mean Darwinism.

 

[Mr.Grieves]

Our blood clotting system is an example. How does a blood clotting system evolve? One end of the spectrum you become a hemophiliac, and on the other end of the spectrum you die of a pulmonary embolism.

You answer your own question in a way. If an organism is developing toward a vascular system, many upon many mutations in that direction may come down the line in hundreds and thousands of years of reproduction. If that mutation goes too far in one direction, the animal dies. Too far in another direction, the animal dies. The animal whose mutation doesn't kill it but actually benefits it gets to not die, and thus reproduces, and its offspring is entirely likely to carry on that mutation, this process progressing until a working vascular system is achieved. It's a trial-and-error process taking millennia that's entirely imperfect, as clearly evidenced by the fact that there ARE hemophiliacs and folks who die of blood-clots.

 

[Mr.Grieves]

And to suggest the exceedingly complex systems and geometry of nature can't be achieved without intelligent design severely underestimates just how awesome nature is.

The incredible beauty, geometry, symmetry of a snow-flake- each unique unto itself- is truly a wonder to behold, and an example of how all things that seem plain and simple in nature are in fact extremely intricate and complex when looked at closely; but does anyone believe God spends his time designing individual snow-flakes? That'd just be silly.

 

[rainerann]

And to suggest the exceedingly complex systems and geometry of nature can't be achieved without intelligent design severely underestimates just how awesome nature is.

The incredible beauty, geometry, symmetry of a snow-flake- each unique unto itself- is truly a wonder to behold, and an example of how all things that seem plain and simple in nature are in fact extremely intricate and complex when looked at closely; but does anyone believe God spends his time designing individual snow-flakes? That'd just be silly.

Right, a snowflake is a complex structure with symmetry or some sort of mathematical boundaries. How do mathematical boundaries evolve?

 

[Etagloc]

I don't know much about evolution. I just know that it's wrong.

 

[manama]

you can call it mother nature, you can call it God's work or will.
in the end mother nature didn't come out of no where.