Quote:
Originally posted by Nachtrafe:
Evolution is bunk. Fish do not evolve into monkeys, trees do not evolve into eagles, and people do not evolve from apes. Now, if we're talking about generational evolution i.e. Giraffe's getting longer and longer necks as successive generations need to reach higher and higher to eat), then I agree...that is a completely viable, and proven theory. But the general theory of Evolution is bunk.
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No, fish do not evolve into monkeys, how true. Fish live in the sea as fish. Every few thousand years or so (which is pretty much the temporal age of human 'civilization' so far, to put the time-frame into perspective) a fish will develope a 'significant' mutation in it's genetic code via a number of possible courses (like say, a 'mistake' in reproductive DNA generation perhaps). If this mutation proves beneficial, ie: gives the fish some sort of survival/thriving advantage (and doesn't
kill it outright, that's always a plus [img]smile.gif[/img] ) then chances are that it will be passed onto it's offspring, although it may very well not be passed on, the fish could fall afoul of undersea currents and get swept up by a hungry shark, bad luck.
Anyway, as these mutations accumulate over thousands, even millions of years, the fish starts to take on characteristics quite noticably different from those of it's predecessors thousands/millions of years ago. It may, by chance, discover that it is able to breath in open-air, or develope tentacle-like apparatus for a different technique of swimming. Now, as time goes by, these newfound characteristics separate the 'new' lifeform from it's other, non-mutated bretheren. It can still mate, to some degree, with it's old compadres (and thus produce similar offspring), but gradually it drifts away from it's old school, so to speak. As more and more of these mutated 'fish' band together, they gradually move toward establishing their own 'communities', and mate with each other on a more exclusive basis. Eventually, after thousands of years of this sort of gene-separation, the 'new' fish have become so genetically different from the 'old' (who have
not mutated in such a manner, nor mated with those who have mutated in such a manner) that they can no longer mate with one another. Thus an entirely different species is 'born'. It is a
slow process, it is an
accumulative process, one which is completely unnoticable when viewd in only a few short generations. It takes literally thousands of generations to create a new species, and even then it relies upon the
chance of genetic mutation occuring in order to take effect.
Over thousands of millions of years (think about it,
thousands of millions , not just thousands, not just millions, but thousands of millions... that's a loooong time [img]smile.gif[/img] ), these genetic mutations lead to the development of whole new
techniques of life-generation (mammalian warm-bloodedness, reptilian yolk-eggs etc). Thus, fish do not evolve into monkeys, but it would appear that they have evolved into something, which evolved into something else which evolved into blah blah blah... which eventually evolved into monkeys....which are in turn evolving into something else as we speak (as are we all). Fascinating
Now of course,
absolutely none of this
theory of evolution proves nor disproves the existance of Gods, demons, the supernatural etc. It merely makes an attempt (and a pretty bloody good attempt in my opinion) to explain the ways in which life has diversified itself over time. It is certainly
NOT bunk! Yet it could very well
not in fact be
true . *shrugs*. I choose to accept it on faith (faith being, as Yorick and Cerek have mentioned, the cornerstone of any and all supposed human 'knowledge').
Ps: sorry for the long post, I know it's a fair slog to get through, but thank you for your patience [img]smile.gif[/img]
[ 12-04-2002, 02:40 AM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]