Evolution

[Vextor]

You can also see evolution at work with many of the domesticated animals. After generations upon generations of human intervention in raising the most "efficient" livestock, you now have cows that will never be able to survive on its own outside man-made quarters, dogs that have been bred to actually be weaker and smaller than their "natural" counterparts, and vegetables that have been grown to have certain kinds of taste/color, such as certain strains of watermelon that have been bred to contain few to no seeds.

[sybillious]

[Noot]

Definitely, good point about nutrition, sybillious. Heh, with all the garbage my fellow Americans consume every day (myself included) I wonder how that will effect the US "species" down the road. I can only hope that Taco Bell has amazing long-term benefits, because that's what I live on! Maybe my descendents will carry the gene that can resist cancer because of all the hot sauce I eat on a weekly basis, haha. :D
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~~Harmonian Tenhei Star~~

It's hard to bargle naudle zauss with all these marbles in my mouth.

[Vextor]

You can eat as many hot sause as you want, but it will not change your genetic make-up., so you won't be passing anything onto your offspring besides whatever allele you acquired from your parents. If you were born with resistance towards hot food, you can possibly transfer such genes to your offspring as long as it is not a recessive trait, however, what you do during your lifetime will not change your genetic makeup. Evolution occures when you survive and successfuly produce offspring. Out of the offspring you have, one of them may be a lot more resistant to hot food than even you could manage, thanks to minor genetic mutations.

[Noot]

Well, thanks for the Biology 101 review there, SARS, haha. Maybe I should have put the [/joke] at the end of my post? ;)
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~~Harmonian Tenhei Star~~

It's hard to bargle naudle zauss with all these marbles in my mouth.

[Vextor]

Yeah, you probably should have. It would have saved me from wasting my time trying to correct misteken ideas about evolution.

[Deleted User 1]

The theory of evolution. It is a freedom of choice even in the christian faith in any religeon that you choose i mean no one person can say hey you can't believe in the theory of evolution. I mean it may be against it but that can't decide whats in your heart but me myself am against it and don't feel like bringing up facts from the bible but really it's up to you in yourself and no one can tell you wrong. but to all of you out there who believe keep on believin.

[John Layfield]

[Tendou Souji]

I do believe in theory of evoulution, but not in the part about monkey being man's ancestor, ad i am a religious type of person added with a dash of the scientific man.Living creatures need to evolve so that they can adaptate to the all changng enviroment.Most of them grow smaller, so that they can rescue themselves from hunger, because it is very hard to get food.here's the theory:If they're small, they need little amounts of food.Big, large amounts of food.Example is the rat/mouse which in prehistoric time was big, but now has shrunk.It's just simple, evolution is just a way of a species to adapt to the ever changing enviroment and mantain it's existence.

[Sai Fujiwara]

You know, I'm a more than a little bit tired of people who believe in evolution trotting their "facts" out like they're completely indesputable. I'm sorry, but there is NO WAY you can actually prove that evolution really took place. I've mostly avoided this thread, because I'm a creationist, and I don't feel like people slamming me because "I'm not with the times," or "I'm ignorant of scientific 'facts.'"

Alright, I know about the whole genetic adeptation thing here, and I think there IS scientific evidence out there that does PROVE that species have the ability to adapt and make changes, from one generation to the next... What I do NOT believe, is that suddenly apes started walking on two feet, then walking erect, then shedding their fur, and growing bigger skulls and brains over the course of five million years. From what little I know about carbon dating, it's a ridiculously flawed process. I heard somewhere that they used carbon dating on a LIVING SNAIL, and it came to be several million years old. This is something I got from hearsay, so I can't really verify that, but it does make me skeptical about the whole thing.

What I will take to heart, and take seriously, is claims of Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. This does make perfect sense, for those who understand how it works. Species whose members exhibit superior traits survive and reproduce more often, to perpetuate those traits which are favorable to their survival. In contrast, those who do NOT have those traits, are more likely to die off, get eaten, etc. Anyway, to me, I consider this "Natural selection" to be common sense, and we can even see it at work in people. You ever hear of the "Darwin Awards?" It's about people who do STUPID things that get themselves killed, thus removing themselves from the gene pool. It's quite humerous, I highly suggest that someone runs a Google search on that.

ANYWAY!!! What I'm trying to say is, I'm not going to argue against Darwin, he didn't come up with evolution (despite popular belief.) However, I'm not going to fall in line with what appears to be the RIDICULOUS notion, that suddenly species started changing, and transforming. This just sounds like some crap from a really bad sci-fi flick, if you want my opinion on it. (That's right, just an opinion, that doesn't mean that I'm right!) Apes becoming man? "Planet of the Apes," anyone? Or, how about amphibians changing into reptiles? Or maybe Birds? Come on, I really don't see how this is any more scientific than Creationism. Agian, I see evidence of ADVANCEMENT, but not transformation. That's just a crock to me, so I'd appreciate if you guys STOP acting like it's indesputable. I know my beliefs aren't shared by all, nor is there any INDESPUTABLE claims to back it up, because not everyone believes the Bible. However, the same could be said about evolution as well.

Point is, we don't have to agree, but let us at least respect one another, because you really can't PROVE one theory wrong, and the other right.

(I know it's easy for most of you to rip apart Creationists, but I'm not going to give you a cookie if you do! :P )
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Happily Married to the Lovely Lady Chris Lightfellow! :D

[St. Ajora]

[Vextor]

I have never really seen evolution and creation as ideas that exist in the same plane of knowledge. Evolution is a completely secular idea which is based on empirical data and evidence. It is impossible and pointless to debate whether empirical data and proof is "undisputable" because science by virtue is always disputable. Even scientific laws can be proven wrong if they are indeed wrong. The epistemology of science is completely different from that of religion, because in religion, truth is undisputable.

Another fact is that religious truth becomes irrelevant outside it's own faith. Religions with no concrete creation mythology (or don't palce much emphasis on it) will have no problem accepting evolution. However, because creation is one of the core root metaphores in Christianity (despite tha Vatican accepting evolution), there will be disputes against evolution; much like the nature of the earth being a globe, or the sun being the center of the solar system, was disputed.

The critical difference is that science is constantly unearthing new evidence which has so far consistently strengthened the notion that homo sapiens sapiens comes from apes. Who knows if this trend will continue. Also, when science finds evidence of creation, they will simply accept that fact. Science itself is merely an empirical process of gaining knowledge about the physical world. It makes no choices (in principle) of what is right or wrong.

[Acheron]

Sai mentioned the fact that Carbon Dating may be a faulty statute to hold as a truth. This is jsut a theory that we came across in a bible study recently that irked my interest. By reading Genesis(the first book of the bible at times dealing with creation) literally you discover that the water cycle may have not started at the begining of Earth. In fact, according to the bible the water cycle may not even have started until the time of Noah and his arc. Basically the theory that I heard goes that if the water cycle hadn't started when some scientists think it had than it could very well have thrown off Carbon Dating by up to millions of years. I thought it was an interesting tidbit of information that I would just throw out there to reinforce Sai's point. I dont know all the nitty-gritty details about the theory but it was a very interesting lesson and may provide a scientifically valid reason of Carbon Dating being wrong. O well, just thoughts.

[Vextor]

Carbon dating can not be "thrown off by millions of years" because Carbon-14 has a relatively short half-life (about 5000 years), which means it is rendered useless beyond about 50000 years. Archaeologists use potassium or uranium dating for longer dates, but these processes are dissimilar to carbon-14 dating.

[Acheron]

Yeah but millions of years just sounds better, wouldnt you say? Ok so maybe I was wrong about the millions of years part but still it would throw it off to some extent. Either way, Ive been raised a creationist and will more than likely stay that way until theres absolute, flawless proof that evolution through natural selection is the final outcome of the discussion. I apologize for mixing up my facts in the former post, my mistake. Its been a while.