Do you believe in evolution ?

[arknor]

We have adapted to the sun, our adaptation to the sun largely comes in the form of our brain being amazing enough to adapt and create on the fly. In hot climates we dig for water wear fewer clothes and create our own shade.

In cold climates we adapt with well insulated homes, thick clothing and central heating.

Animals without our amazing brains adapt in other ways, with thick fur coats in the cold (polar bear, penguins, snow leapord) and bare skin in the warmth (elephants, rhinos, hippos).

doesn't stop the sun from damaging your skin and eyes

that's not evolution anyway it's intelligence/survival of the fittest



why is everyone not in bed anyway? :O you don't evolve and get a job?

 

[tbyeah]

appendix, tail bone, erector pili and body Hair, wisdom teeth?


I'm not believing a story over anything, evolution is plausible but I'm not convinced it's the correct answer in a few hundred years

Most of these are evolutionary hangovers from our ancestors. The tail bone has shortened due to it being redundant, body hair still serves to insulate slightly, etc.

I did provide a link about the evolutionary timeline of man. Most of these questions are answered by a Google search.

 

[Sliver]

doesn't stop the sun from damaging your skin and eyes

What's the alternative theory say about this then ? God created us and the sun knowing that the sun will damage our skin and eyes, but he did it anyway ? If that's true then god sounds like an ass hat to me.

 

[tbyeah]

doesn't stop the sun from damaging your skin and eyes

that's not evolution anyway it's intelligence/survival of the fittest



why is everyone not in bed anyway? :O you don't evolve and get a job?

Survival of the fittest/natural selection is a key component of evolution.

 

[Stretch]

Erm. They are both theories. There is currently no "right" and "wrong" belief here.

One is based on observable data, the other on a book written many years ago.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the term "theory" in the scientific sense. A scientific theory means much more than the general term theory.

Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge.[3] This is significantly different from the common usage of the word "theory", which implies that something is a guess (i.e., unsubstantiated and speculative).[5]

 

[m4rk84]

it's survival of the fittest

Exactly. Aka Evolution.

 

[arknor]

What's the alternative theory say about this then ? God created us and the sun knowing that the sun will damage our skin and eyes, but he did it anyway ? If that's true then god sounds like an ass hat to me.

I'm not religious and I don't believe in any of that nonsense.
I don't have an alternative theory I'm just not convinced it was like this

If something evolves from humans we will kill it anyway to stay top of the food chain surely ? and anyone branded a mutant ain't getting laid

 

[Sliver]

I'm not religious and I don't believe in any of that nonsense.
I don't have an alternative theory I'm just not convinced it was like this

If something evolves from humans we will kill it anyway to stay top of the food chain surely ? and anyone branded a mutant ain't getting laid

Good answer man. Good answer. Except for the part where you say you're not convinced.

 

[Angilion]

It's still not a fact it just the best explanation based on the knowledge we have.

it can still be proved wrong

You're confusing two different things.

Evolution is a thing that happens. It's a fact (unless you take the position that there's no such thing as a fact because everything is based on assuming that the universe exists).

The theory of evolution is an explanation of how evolution happens. That's what scientific theories are - explanations of how things happen. It's not evolution itself. Even if it is an incorrect explanation despite all the evidence supporting it that would have no bearing at all on the existence of evolution.

It's testimony to the skill of creationist propagandists that anyone can confuse the two. It doesn't happen for anything else. For example, would you say that infectious and contagious diseases aren't a fact because the germ theory of disease is "just the best explanation based on the knowledge we have" ?

 

[arknor]

why are apes not becoming more human like over the thousands of years we have been observing them? why would some evolve and others refuse to change ?

makes no sense?

 

[m4rk84]

why are apes not becoming more human like over the thousands of years we have been observing them? why would some evolve and others refuse to change ?

makes no sense?

Because they have survived perfectly fine on their own path, is the fact they even exist today not evidence of that?

In their respective food chains they have beneficial traits that have helped them survive till now.

Also apes DID become more humanlike, or atleast one branch of apes did, the line of the homo-sapiens.

 

[Angilion]

in more than a crappy microscopic lifeform that might have just had random gene mutations.

Did it actually evolve to be better than it was or to become more specialised ?

There is no purpose to evolution, so your question is meaningless. Nothing evolves to a goal - there is no goal.

"have just had random gene mutations" is "evolved"

"crappy microscopic lifeform" is a lifeform.

Evolution has been observed in lifeforms larger than microscopic (not that size is relevant to the existence of evolution).

 

[Angilion]

Yes better.

MRSA is very good example of bacterial evolution, where a species has adapted to the introduction of antibiotics.

Evolution is a pre mid 20th century science. It's be proven and well understood for decades. The only reason people have such a hard time accepting it when compared to other science, is its apparent contradiction of religious dogma.

Evolution predates science. It predates humans. Humans have been using evolution as a tool for over 10,000 years - selective breeding is evolution by human selection.

 

[Angilion]

Men have nipples because we start out as women in the womb, they are a leftover of our transition to becoming male.

That doesn't make sense - nobody is a woman in the womb (or for years afterwards). Everyone starts out neuter - a single cell can't have a sex in any meaningful way.

Men have nipples because nipples are part of being human, like eyes and fingers and everything else. Male and female aren't seperate species - the basics are all the same and there's just some variation on a common theme in some parts. It's like two slightly different fonts for the same alphabet rather than two different alphabets.

 

[arknor]

Evolution predates science. It predates humans. Humans have been using evolution as a tool for over 10,000 years - selective breeding is evolution by human selection.

technically if evolution is real you should be able to alter human dna to go back to a previous state and prove it ? obviously not at this point in time.

there would be no other way to prove it once and for all without a time machine?

 

[m4rk84]

That doesn't make sense - nobody is a woman in the womb (or for years afterwards). Everyone starts out neuter - a single cell can't have a sex in any meaningful way.

Men have nipples because nipples are part of being human, like eyes and fingers and everything else. Male and female aren't seperate species - the basics are all the same and there's just some variation on a common theme in some parts. It's like two slightly different fonts for the same alphabet rather than two different alphabets.

While you are right my explanation is an easier quick dirty way to explain it. Our embryos essentially all start the same and grow to a certain point as neither male nor female, neutral gendered. We all grow nipples before the point where we deviate to become either male or female.

The reason I said female is because the neutral embryo more closely resembles a female then a male, lack of penis and presence of nipples.

 

[Angilion]

why are apes not becoming more human like over the thousands of years we have been observing them? why would some evolve and others refuse to change ?

makes no sense?

Yes, it makes no sense because you're asking questions containing an incorrect assumption, namely that evolution has a purpose. You're even going as far as saying that animals choose whether or not to evolve!

 

[Angilion]

technically if evolution is real you should be able to alter human dna to go back to a previous state and prove it ? obviously not at this point in time.

there would be no other way to prove it once and for all without a time machine?

It's already proven. Humans have been using it as a tool for millenia and that works. If it didn't exist, it wouldn't be possible to use it as a tool. It has been observed repeatedly. It even continues to affect humans today and on timescales shorter than a single human lifespan. MRSA is the most (in)famous example, but it's far from the only one.

And no, the existence of evolution doesn't mean that you should be able to alter human DNA to go back to a previous state. To do that, you'd have to know what the previous state was, i.e. a complete genome of a pre-human species, and even if you had that knowledge and were able to change DNA at will, what on earth does that have to do with evolution?

 

[dirtychinchilla]

arknor, your relentless questions are simply highlighting your ignorance and lack of education with regards evolution. Evidently, some of the body parts that you've repeatedly mentioned with your moronic gifs had some use in the human body within the last few hundred thousand years. We recognise homo sapiens as being a species for only the last twenty thousand years, meaning that since then very little has changed in the human body. That should give you a vague idea of how bloody long it takes evolution to make any real changes. Our ancestors must have had some use for wisdom teeth, for example, maybe 30,000 years ago.

I can't believe you brought up male nipples...

And we can view the previous state of humans by looking at fossils.

 

[Yaayuh!]

appendix, tail bone, erector pili and body Hair, wisdom teeth?

We have no reason to lose them. Yes they're "pointless" but they're not stopping us breeding or affecting our lives in any way, therefore will not be evolved out of us.

Arguably, if we didn't have the know-how to remove appendixes when they have problems, then the humans with the genes with appendix issues will surely die out? Over thousands and thousands of years of course.

Edit: Damn it, i promised myself i'd not return to this thread.