Ok I realize a large number of you are not religious, and some of your are very religious, but I was contemplating some things while reading today and I hit a stumper.

Up till now I am religious (christian) and believe in evolution.
I know that many RC scholars do not consider the Adam and Eve story to be a literal history of the world, and neither do I.
But I did sort of have one little problem...how come we don't see any newly evolved life forms? You would think they would pop up from time to time...the only ones I know of in modern history are geneticly altered beasties. So when was the last evolved creature ....well.....evolved?

Edit: Ok...I just sort of possibly answered my own question...perhas they are evolving at the bottom of the ocean..it does cover 7/10ths of the world....and Black Smokers are supposed to be organicly rich and diverse.....hmmm need to read more I guess.

Help? Anyone?? thoughts? Comments?

[ 04-19-2002, 01:12 AM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

The way I see it, evolution takes a very long time and considering we (advanced civilization) have only known about evolution for a couple hundred years, there is yet to be any significant changes that have been categorised (there are reports that humans around 0bc were alot shorter, but I don't know this for a fact).

In a news report about a month ago, doctors had completed a study into where the next step would be in human evolution - they go on to say that in the last 20 years (especially in children that own playstations or computers), the most dextrous finger in the hand has changed from the index finger to the thumb, and they attributed this to the extra use it was getting with controllers and keyboards - true story [img]smile.gif[/img]

Interesting topic though and I am keen to see other peoples views aswell

[ 04-19-2002, 01:21 AM: Message edited by: Downunda ]

Actually, evolutionary processes take place faster than scientists previously thought. I good example is on the Galapogos Islands, where scientists recently observed changing weather patterns that caused seeds to have thicker shells than usual. Within a year, birds were born - evolved - with shorter, tougher beaks to more easily eat the shells.

The reason why you don't see new creatures popping up is that evolution is a gradual process, which happens over thousands and millions of years, and certainly longer than any human lifespan. You might not notice a difference with the birds above from they way they were, but perhaps in a hundred or thousand years if climatic changes favored seeds with very tough, thick skins, then you would find a bird evolving which had very different features than its ancestors, and which is better able to survive the new conditions. That is survival of the fittest. Often biologists classify what would be to you and me as miniscule non-noticable differences as new species.

The last big evolutionary change was humans...evolving to modern form from an ape-LIKE ancestor about 1-2 million years ago. I also remeber hearing about mastodons (wooly mammoths) that survived the last ice age and evolved into miniature forms in a remote part of Russia up until 1,000 years ago, when humans wiped them out.

I don't know if evolution really applies anymore though. In theory it does, but the destabilizing influence on the Earth's ecosystems of humans overwhelms nature's influence, IMHO.

As I understand it - Darwin's Theory of Evolution is just that - still a theory, a hypothesis. If it was proven beyond doubt (there are still major holes in it) it would be called Darwin's Rule of Evolution.
What I see as a stumbling block is, if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes? Evolution is meant to be a process of 'survival of the fittest' - if we are the evolved 'fitter' apes, how come the inferior ones survived the conditions that forced the evolutionary change?

Also why would we evolve babies to be far more helpless and dependant than ape babies?

Well, it's a theory that is mostly understood to be fact. There is also Newton's Theory of Gravitational Attraction, but of course no one disputes that.

Quote:

What I see as a stumbling block is, if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes? Evolution is meant to be a process of 'survival of the fittest' - if we are the evolved 'fitter' apes, how come the inferior ones survived the conditions that forced the evolutionary change?

We didn't evolve from apes - Darwin's whole idea was that there was a "missing link", from which man and apes both evolved. Apes are not our ancestors, they are our cousins. And that's why they're still around.

Creationism has enough holes to put Swiss cheese to shame, so for now, I think I'll stick with evolution.

<font color="lightgreen", face="Vivaldi", size=+1>Ever heard of Pythagorus' theorum ?? Its still called a theorum (which as I understand it is a mathematical form of "theory"), and yet it CAN be proven. Yet, Herons theorum (area of a triangle given the angles) I have yet to see proven, or been able to prove myself. Same name, different cirumstances, yet still legitimate English.
Therefore, if it were proven, or atleast accepted by all of the scientists researching it (yes, I know thats unlikely... but it has been known to happen once...), then no it wouldnt be called a rule or a law, but still a theory. </font>

Possibly apes are still around because some of them evolved to become us and fill one niche in nature while some remained as they were to fill another. Possibly we evolved because the niche currently filled by apes was becoming "over-filled" and some had to change to survive in other ways or shortage of "space "would have been the end of the majority of the race.

The problem with the "missing link" theory is that it is just that - MISSING. Despite Darwin's theory...no bona fide evidence has EVER been found of this "missing link". Scientists have discovered skeletal remains that pre-date and post-date the "link", but have never found any remains that could conclusevily be classified as the heralded "missing link"

AFA the "holes" in Creationism, please specify them. If there are so many,then it shouldn't be hard to list them.

The fact is, there is just as much documentation to support Creationism as there is Evolution...but since the documentation for Creationism is a religious text, then it is rejected out-of-hand.

For those who may not know (or can't tell), I belong to the "deeply religious" segment. Here is a link to a Christian website's answer to several questions concerning Evolution vs Creationism.

Evolution vs Creation

Im a christian and believe in the creation but its a matter of faith
evololution hasnt been proved true thats why its still called a theory
yet you have to have blind faith in the Bible as well, There are Christian scientists as well who have come up with every bit as much prof of the creation as evolotionary scientists
watch some videos by dr Ken Ham