I don't understand Evolution.

[WalkingOnDisaster]

Excuse me if I sound bias please.

Evolution is the basis of improvement, right? We go from small little single-cell organisms to some form of land creature to monkeys to humans, with something in there that I am sure I missed.
But if Evolution where the case, and that is how we all got here (Not saying it's not, I don't know what to believe in terms of creation), then wouldn't we all be getting better?

[Elysium]

Define better, in this case? Nature doesn't have a distinctive difference between "good" and "bad." We're just changing, adapting, whatever. We happen to subjectively regard these changes and deem them as "better" or "worse," and those labels depend on a large variety of factors.

[xxPerryPlatypusxx]

I don't believe in evolution so I can't really answer this well
I believe in god so ya. but if we did come from monkeys like how did it happen?

[Jess]

It doesn't happen in a few years. It takes millions of years.

[WalkingOnDisaster]

Define better, in this case? Nature doesn't have a distinctive difference between "good" and "bad." We're just changing, adapting, whatever. We happen to subjectively regard these changes and deem them as "better" or "worse," and those labels depend on a large variety of factors.

Like, for instance, humans. Hundreds of years ago we would live to be 100, 200, there are beliefs we even lived to be 300 almost. But now we hardly reach to 70 sometimes.

[Harry Smith]

I don't believe in evolution so I can't really answer this well
I believe in god so ya. but if we did come from monkeys like how did it happen?

Look at the peppered moth, that proves evolution perfectly.


Like, for instance, humans. Hundreds of years ago we would live to be 100, 200, there are beliefs we even lived to be 300 almost. But now we hardly reach to 70 sometimes.

that's wrong, in the 1500's you were lucky to get to 50, we're living longer, look at Japan. Other factors affect age such as hygiene and health care

[Cygnus]

Evolution states that species slowly (very slowly) change to adapt to their environment. Right now our environment hasn't had any extreme change that requires us to adapt to it so we can survive. However, there have been changes that we have made since races are mixing and breeding different types of offspring. Plus, we are getting "better" as people with favourable traits are most likely to leave offspring and pass on those traits. Now you said that we went from monkeys to humans, which is completely false. We had a common ancestor with monkeys but that common ancestor evolved into two different species, which ended up being monkeys and humans. Anything else I need to explain?

[WalkingOnDisaster]

Look at the peppered moth, that proves evolution perfectly.




that's wrong, in the 1500's you were lucky to get to 50, we're living longer, look at Japan. Other factors affect age such as hygiene and health care

It isn't wrong, they found facts in ancient Egypt way before even the 1500's. And how does the peppered moth prove it? That proves adaptation. Not evolution.

[Harry Smith]

It isn't wrong, they found facts in ancient Egypt way before even the 1500's. And how does the peppered moth prove it? That proves adaptation. Not evolution.

Your telling me in ancient Egypt people lived longer? Do you know any thing about medicine? Also I assume you have a source to back this up with. Evolution and adaptation tie in very closely. Adaption is the reason why species evolve, the dodo was unable to evolve and it got wiped out, it's called natural selection, the stronger animal survives due to being able to adapt over time- this disproves the argument that God created all life as it is at the moment.Also look at Paleontology it shows us that organisms have changed gradually over time, as reflected in the fossils.

Evolution is accepted by the scientific community, it's been peer reviewed and assessed.

[Cygnus]

And how does the peppered moth prove it? That proves adaptation. Not evolution.

Evolution IS adaptation, it talk about how species adapt or are suited to survive.

[WalkingOnDisaster]

Evolution IS adaptation, it talk about how species adapt or are suited to survive.

Perhaps I was taught something else, because that is not how it was explained to me. I was taught adaptation was what you said, but evolution was the change from one species to another entirely over time. Such as how we came from monkeys, as it's believed.

Your telling me in ancient Egypt people lived longer? Do you know any thing about medicine? Also I assume you have a source to back this up with. Evolution and adaptation tie in very closely. Adaption is the reason why species evolve, the dodo was unable to evolve and it got wiped out, it's called natural selection, the stronger animal survives due to being able to adapt over time- this disproves the argument that God created all life as it is at the moment.Also look at Paleontology it shows us that organisms have changed gradually over time, as reflected in the fossils.

Evolution is accepted by the scientific community, it's been peer reviewed and assessed.

I read it on National Geographic, and my father has also said many things, and he is a scientist.

Evolution is a hoax, and Charles Darwin himself said it was not evolution that he was speaking of, but of natural adaptation. He said it himself in a letter he wrote before he died, that many people today deny, even some scientists who have read it himself.


-merged double post. -Emerald Dream

[Sudds3]

There is one thing that always sticks in my mind when people speak of evolution. The Olympics. In the Olympics people always break records. The record for say the 100 meter dash in 1891 was set by Luther Cary with a time of 10.8 seconds. Now in it is down to a 9.58 set by Usain Bolt in 2009. It took 118 years to move down 1.22 seconds. Any track runner know how hard it is to shave down time in the 100 meter dash because there is so little time to react to and make up for mistakes. We slowly got better by tenths and hundreths of seconds at a time. This happens all the time, and there are random break throughs like in the long jump. Igor Ter-Ovanesyan had the record at 8.35 meters. Then one year later the record was broken with a distance of 8.9 meters set by Bob Beamon.

I take the slow progression of records to show that we are slowly getting better. Things such as running, swimming, and jumping which could be needed to escape predators. This and intense training led to the progressions. It could be proof of evolution but it also could just be that we are getting smarter in our training.

[Hunter_Steel]

I doubt Evolution.

Evolution is a backwards process, its negative.

Fish didn't adapt to live on land, simply because they wanted to. They LOST their ability to breathe underwater. And they just gained a small ability to walk on land. Nothing major. But they lost a very major part of their being.

We don't gain anything from Evolution, we lose things. Evolution is a negative process where nothing is gained. And even Darwin said that he was wrong about evolution and natural selection. Humans never evolved from Apes, otherwise apes wouldn't exist anymore. So why do they? Because we did not evolve from them, we came from someplace else. We share DNA with almost every animal on this planet. And our intelligence rivals that of a whale.

~Hunter

[Korashk]

Perhaps I was taught something else, because that is not how it was explained to me. I was taught adaptation was what you said, but evolution was the change from one species to another entirely over time. Such as how we came from monkeys, as it's believed.
Nope, evolution is adaptation and the changing from one species to another. People who are ideologically opposed to the fact of evolution like to claim that they're different in order to confuse people, but they're the same. One species adapting to its environment through generations and one species changing into another distinct species is exactly the same process.

Also, it's a misconception that people came from "monkeys" (really apes). In reality apes and humans shared a common ancestor.

I read it on National Geographic, and my father has also said many things, and he is a scientist.
I seriously doubt that you read in National geographic that in ancient times people lived longer than they do now, because that is completely false. It's just one of the many ridiculous and untrue things claimed by the Bible.

And if your father claims stuff like that, I can't imagine he's a very well regarded scientist.

Evolution is a hoax, and Charles Darwin himself said it was not evolution that he was speaking of, but of natural adaptation. He said it himself in a letter he wrote before he died, that many people today deny, even some scientists who have read it himself.
That crap has been debunked so many times its ridiculous.

It's people like you who claim all of this completely ludicrous stuff that pisses off the people like me and others who actually know enough about evolution. We address these COMPLETELY FALSE notions time and time again until we get tired of it and just stop addressing them. Then people take this nonresponse to mean that we don't have a response and just run with their ignorance.

[randomme]

Also we are improving/changing but due to are short life span in comparison to evolutionary span we wouldn't notice any change, humans are a tiny branch on the evolutionary tree of life

[Twilly F. Sniper]

Evolution takes thousands of years.

[Human]

Evolution can take from decades to thousands to millions of years.
Humans only reproduce on average a couple of times per generation, so every 20 years maybe? This means that it takes thousands of years for humans to evolve, as new genes and adaptations are more slowly being brought it.

For bacteria which multiply by the thousands, evolution happens from as short as months to years. That's why some antibiotics don't work, as the things they are used on have evolved resistance.
Humans are evolving by the way, we're eventually becoming less lactose intolerant, we're losing wisdom teeth, we're becoming resistant to diseases like malaria, our brains are shrinking due to being more efficient, and blue eyes are being more common

[TheBigUnit]

Excuse me if I sound bias please.

Evolution is the basis of improvement, right? We go from small little single-cell organisms to some form of land creature to monkeys to humans, with something in there that I am sure I missed.
But if Evolution where the case, and that is how we all got here (Not saying it's not, I don't know what to believe in terms of creation), then wouldn't we all be getting better?

One of the major causes of evolution is genetic mutation and build off it, if its a "good" mutation, which doesn't happen as often as a "bad" mutation, it basically give u an edge in living longer but thts a very basic form,

humans are getting better as said by Human ^^^
We are Homo Sapiens Sapiens, the original Homo Sapiens (not neanderthals) died off, our jaws are smaller we re more agile less hairy and most of all smarter than the original Homo Sapiens, one example that comes to mind is tht because of the fact that races are all mixing our chances of getting skin caner also diminishes......being less lactose intolerant also helps bc if you were European back in the peasant days and lived partially off milk being lactose intolerant was actually really dangerous

Like, for instance, humans. Hundreds of years ago we would live to be 100, 200, there are beliefs we even lived to be 300 almost. But now we hardly reach to 70 sometimes.

hundreds of years ago we would all be middle aged adults, this site would be called vitual 401k or something along tht manner

Nope, evolution is adaptation and the changing from one species to another. People who are ideologically opposed to the fact of evolution like to claim that they're different in order to confuse people, but they're the same. One species adapting to its environment through generations and one species changing into another distinct species is exactly the same process.

Also, it's a misconception that people came from "monkeys" (really apes). In reality apes and humans shared a common ancestor.


I seriously doubt that you read in National geographic that in ancient times people lived longer than they do now, because that is completely false. It's just one of the many ridiculous and untrue things claimed by the Bible.

And if your father claims stuff like that, I can't imagine he's a very well regarded scientist.


That crap has been debunked so many times its ridiculous.

It's people like you who claim all of this completely ludicrous stuff that pisses off the people like me and others who actually know enough about evolution. We address these COMPLETELY FALSE notions time and time again until we get tired of it and just stop addressing them. Then people take this nonresponse to mean that we don't have a response and just run with their ignorance.

do you realize how much of an asshole you sound like?

[TheBassoonist]

Evolution is the tendency of a species to adapt in response to changing stimuli in order to better survive. Within one species are variations of certain parts of the anatomy. That could be anything from an organ to an entire limb. According to evolution, the members of that species with the adaptation best suited to some change in stimuli will survive and pass its genetic code, with the adaptation included in that code, down through subsequent generations. Some of the time, the members of the species without that adaptation completely die out, simply because they weren't best equipped to survive. Other times, variations stay within a certain species, but if the variations become great enough such that a member with variation A can't make a fertile offspring with a member with variation B, you have a new species. That's what happened between donkeys and horses. Mules are infertile, so donkeys and horses are different species and diverged in the evolutionary tree some time ago.

Short version: If an adaptation gives a better chance of survival, that adaptation gets passed down through reproduction. Enough variation leads to a new species.

[Korashk]

do you realize how much of an asshole you sound like?
Don't care. People who dispute evolution despite knowing nothing about it and have never taken the initiative to learn anything about it, and spout bullshit as fact deserve derision.

They, as a group, are holding the world back because of their backwards and incorrect way of thinking.

The "debate" (HAH) between evolution and creationism is but the most common manifestation of this mindset. These people don't take issue with things like gravity, or relativity, or any other scientific theory you'd claim to name, but when it comes to evolution they're all up in arms. So I'm just fucking tired of the:

"HURR DURR JUST A THEORY"
"HURR DURR NO TRANSITIONAL FOSSILS"
"HURR DURR CAN'T BE PROVEN"
"HURR DURR; HURR DURR; HURR DURR"

Mentality.

It's gotten to the point where I'm just going to treat people that don't think evolution happens like the backwards thinking idiots that they tend to be; because explaining things to them rationally simply doesn't work.

[Skyline]

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