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I do hope this can be just a 'Telling about it' thread and not turn into an Evilooshun vs. Creationism debate.
It really is understandable that the process of development of life from the single cell (which is the earliest fossil we have) to us, is just seen as unbelievable, and the suggestion that the the fossils in strata is firm evidence of the gradual development can be regarded as misinterpreting the evidence. I don't think it is, and the evidence is clear. the first cells came together in groups of cells. The evolutionary advantage - what is best fitted to survive, survives, would naturally favour the forms that compete best (don't blame us, nature dunnit ).
So we get soft -bodies creatures and plants- which were not too different from animals at that time. And hard shells gave an obvious survival advantage (the mechanism of DNA mutation that enables natural selection can be left to later). The survival arms -race really took off then and the empty Cambrian sea became filled with all sorts of evolutionary experiments over ...what...20 million years. This 'explosion' is sometimes presented as proof of Creation, but it is hardly that. There were other examples of 'explosions' into vacated ecological niches. After the Triassic extinction of the reptiles, the dinosaurs (a different species of critter) exploded over the next tens of millions of years into the many forms we all know and love, morphed into furry purple plush. The extinction at the end of the Cretaceous gave mammals (which had been around as as long as the dinosaurs) the chance to 'explode' in there turn.
Where creation fits in here is - frankly, rather hard to see. It only works if you say that God was overseeing it all, but again, honestly, I cannot see where it is needed. Just Abiogenisis is the inexplicable aspect that affords a reasonable creation explanation.
I am ready to cut and run on this as soon as it becomes a debate, and it may deserve a move anyway, to Religion or A/A (as an explanation of why the goddless see no need to postulate a Creator) but we'll see.
If there's a particular aspect you want to discuss to see how we suggest it happened without the need for Creative input, just say.
It is really hard for me to see the evidence of a one celled amoeba morphing into a man no matter how many billion years it took. It goes against everything I learned in Biology. The idea that we had a common ancestor also goes against what I learned in Biology. I wasn't a Biology major, so granted, it isn't like I studied 4 or 5 years of Biology. When church taught me that Adam and Eve were the parents of the entire world, I didn't believe that either. So, the common ancestor theory is really something that I can't wrap my head around.
I'm really not trying to eliminate evolution in favor of God. I believe in God, so the God theory is fine with me. But I also believe in science, so I am looking for an evolution theory that doesn't sound like the tall tales I learned about the Bible. You helped me disprove that Adam and Eve were the parents of all humans. I have believed that the Adam and Eve thing was a misinterpretation from church for decades. You helped me prove that (to myself, only; not to anyone else). This group helped me prove my theory that there was no world-wide flood, as the church teaches. The recent thread on the earth being 4.54 billion years old helped me prove creation didn't happen in 6 of our 24 days, as I have believed for decades. Now, I am trying to answer the question (for myself; no one else) how evolution fits into the overall equation.
I don't think that the theories of evolution are like the evidence that the world is 4.54 billion years old. I don't think science has gotten right. But, maybe there is something I don't know or that I have missed.
The one celled amoeba flopping out of the muck and evolving into anything doesn't make sense to me. I saw this on a science program on TV. They had elaborate mock-up footage how the one cell flopped out of the muck and then evolved in to a man. You can pull a fish out of the water and he is not going to live long enough to develop lungs - even if he has 1 million years to do it. The common ancestor idea is not any better than the Adam and Eve story. The "we evolved from apes" doesn't make sense to me, either - unless we are back to one ape evolving into a black man and he is our common ancestor, and you know how I feel about that one.
There are too many unanswered questions for me.
Really, I'm not poking you with a stick. I really am looking for an answer.
Evolution plays whatever part man says it plays - it was invented and is substantiated by man. If God chooses to make something a little bit different and put life into it, that's His prerogative. When man can create life instead of just labelling everything God does with pseudo random meaningless gestures from and out of unbelief, I'm sure we will hear about it.
Well having watched the senseless debate and endless food fights over this while keeping my mouth shut for many years I would refer you to the Urantia Book on the subject. It's a very extensive work and covers the matter quite well, explaining that God did in fact evolve us over millions of years on this world.
The matter becomes heated when some insist on taking ancient myths literally.
Thank you so much for the book. I am not familiar with it.
Yes, it does get tedious when people argue Creation and Evolution. I try to stay out of that myself.
It is really hard for me to see the evidence of a one celled amoeba morphing into a man no matter how many billion years it took. It goes against everything I learned in Biology. The idea that we had a common ancestor also goes against what I learned in Biology. I wasn't a Biology major, so granted, it isn't like I studied 4 or 5 years of Biology. When church taught me that Adam and Eve were the parents of the entire world, I didn't believe that either. So, the common ancestor theory is really something that I can't wrap my head around.
I'm really not trying to eliminate evolution in favor of God. I believe in God, so the God theory is fine with me. But I also believe in science, so I am looking for an evolution theory that doesn't sound like the tall tales I learned about the Bible. You helped me disprove that Adam and Eve were the parents of all humans. I have believed that the Adam and Eve thing was a misinterpretation from church for decades. You helped me prove that (to myself, only; not to anyone else). This group helped me prove my theory that there was no world-wide flood, as the church teaches. The recent thread on the earth being 4.54 billion years old helped me prove creation didn't happen in 6 of our 24 days, as I have believed for decades. Now, I am trying to answer the question (for myself; no one else) how evolution fits into the overall equation.
I don't think that the theories of evolution are like the evidence that the world is 4.54 billion years old. I don't think science has gotten right. But, maybe there is something I don't know or that I have missed.
The one celled amoeba flopping out of the muck and evolving into anything doesn't make sense to me. I saw this on a science program on TV. They had elaborate mock-up footage how the one cell flopped out of the muck and then evolved in to a man. You can pull a fish out of the water and he is not going to live long enough to develop lungs - even if he has 1 million years to do it. The common ancestor idea is not any better than the Adam and Eve story. The "we evolved from apes" doesn't make sense to me, either - unless we are back to one ape evolving into a black man and he is our common ancestor, and you know how I feel about that one.
There are too many unanswered questions for me.
Really, I'm not poking you with a stick. I really am looking for an answer.
What you watched wasn't the evolution theory. Like I said, the cells grouped together, turned into soft bodied creatures. then some hard -shell animals developed and led to the line of crustaceans and insects. others developed a backbone, became fish, reptiles and to mammals. all this is shown in the fossil record, so, hard to believe though it may seem, this is what the evidences indicates.
I can only suggest getting familiar with the evidence rather than just sticking with a cartoon -theory of a fish flopping onto land and gasping to expiry. Put that way, it does look hard to accept.
A male and female have pairs of chromosomes. For example, humans have 23 pairs.
A human male creates a sperm cell with 23 chromosomes and the female creates an egg cell with 23 chromosomes. These come together to form a new human with 23 pairs of chromosomes.
When the egg and sperm cell come together, changes in the chromosomes often occur, and these are called mutations. So the new human is more than just a combination of the chromosomes from the parents. The new human may actually have an entirely new trait.
For example, both parents may have brown eyes and the new human, with the mutation, may have blue eyes.
Hey, Hiker45. I'm glad you're here. After we go shut down on the other thread, I hoped you stop by.
As for the brown eyes/blue eyes: I really am not poking you with a stick. I promise.
Two brown eyed people can have a blue eyed baby, but two blue eyed people cannot have a brown eyed baby.
Brown eyes (from ancestry with only brown eyes) or blue eyes from 2 blue eyed parents is homozygous - a gene pair that is the same.
Then there is heterozygous - where one parent (or both) is carrying 1 brown gene and 1 blue gene
The brown gene is always dominate (if you get one brown gene, then you have brown eyes). The blue gene is recessive (you have to get one from each parent). For a blue eyed baby from two heterozygous parents, each must give their blue gene to the baby. If one is heterozygous and one is blue eyed, then both must give the baby a blue eyed gene (which comes from the heterozygous parent, because the blue eyed parent only has blue to give).
So, actually this is not a mutation. It is a gene pairing from the parents each giving a blue eyed gene even though they both have brown eyes.
The fossil record shows a progressive increment in the skull cavity (brain size) over time. This implies that natural selection favored primates with larger brains over those with smaller brains. BTW, you know we are primates?
Why did the brain get larger? This has to do with the use of the hands. It is likely our most primitive ancestor is an ape that learned to walk upright rather than on all fours as chimps do most of the time. This freed the hands to do specialized work. The area of the cerebral cortex that represents the hands is HUGE. Natural selection likely favored those with the greatest hand dexterity.
Thank you. I can wrap my head around the skull changes. I'm still having trouble with the apes. Yes, I am familiar with the order.
Of course we evolved from apes. This is not a 'belief' but simply an understanding of the terms 'evolve' and 'ape'.
Evolution is, quite simply, the change in frequency of alleles within a gene pool over time due to organisms leaving (through death) and joining (through birth) that gene pool. Every birth represents evolutionary change. And since the fact that each of us was born is undisputed, we evolved from out ancestors, including from our most immediate ancestors - our two biological parents. Most creationists don't have a problem with this - indeed, most of them are so ignorant of evolution that they don't even understand that what I have described above is evolution. Where creationists tend to get all upset is the notion of common descent, which is merely an implication of evolution. Which leads us to the segue into apes.
Apes are, quite simply, all members of the superfamily Hominoidea. This biological clade includes the lesser apes (gibbons) and the great apes (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans). We - as in, all humans - are apes, by the very definition of the term. Again, I am well aware that most creationists are ignorant of both the fact that 'ape' is not an arbitrary term but a very precise one that follows the rules of cladistics and the fact that humans fall within the clade.
So, if every birth represents evolution (and it does) and if our parents are apes (and they are), then we evolved from apes.
Now, if one wants to discuss the notion that humans descended from non-human apes (ignoring for the moment that, given the basic foundation of biology, our ancestral lineage could no more exclude non-human apes than a wolf's ancestral lineage could exclude non-lupine canines), we have all the usual evidences for evolution. First, the morphology of skeletal structures of extant humans and chimpanzees (which I picked because along with bonobos, chimpanzees are our closest non-human relatives), as well the morphology of the fossils of human ancestors. Second, physiological similarities between extant humans and chimpanzees. Third, the myriad lines of molecular evidence. Note that I am not discussing mere similarities here, but a similarities with varying degrees of divergence for which we simply have no plausible mechanism other than the common descent of humans and (again, for example) chimpanzees from a common ancestor.
Frankly, the rest of the paragraph above, and the body of your writing as a whole here, indicates that you really don't even have the most tenuous understanding of evolutionary biology. You just don't like the implications of evolution, so you reject it. There's clearly no more to it than that.
Why are you so angry and hostile? I simply asked a question.
I don't think "You just don't like the implications of evolution, so you reject it. There's clearly no more to it than that" that is a fair assessment of me or my post. I'm am sorry that you feel that way.
Since you believe that humans are special, you probably have a hard time accepting that your direct ancestor was a fish.
We Atheists believe that we humans are just one species struggling to survive on this planet, and there is nothing special about us at all.
In fact the scientists believe we humans almost perished about 75,000 years ago when a supervolcano exploded in Sumatra, eventually leaving behind Lake Toba. Life on Earth is tough.
Thank you so much for the book. I am not familiar with it.
Yes, it does get tedious when people argue Creation and Evolution. I try to stay out of that myself.
I try to stay out of even putting creation and evolution side-by-side as OP has done with this thread.
The reason being that one of the theories is anchored in reality and the other is pure fantasy. They are in no way compatible. They are overlapping such that discussing the 'merits' of either side by side is nonsensical.
Evolution explains how we got here, creationism provides a fictional account of how we got here.
What is the purpose of comparing the two when only one is actually real? It's about as logical as comparing Brits to Jedi knights, and debating which ones make better world citizens in the 21st century.
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).