What do you belive in, Creationism or Evolution?

Hence the "Missing Link", instead of a monkey going and doing it with a diffrent animal, and bang we happened....no, what if we have such close DNA to monkeys and chimps, is because both species evolved from the same ancestor, the missing link, and when humans evolved from this species, and gained a crap load of knowledge, that species/ancestor, lost enough of the better traits to move forward and become humans... But instead, they moved backwards and only became partial humans....aka, the monkeys that we see today..... And because we have more knowledge than monkeys is because our evolution made us more effitient than monkeys with some drawbacks....

 

There is plenty of evidence that evolution exists. It's even happened during my lifetime with a type of jellyfish. evolution exists. Nough said.

 

Evolution, Darwin had a better theory than the Pope. But of course that's just my opinion.

 

Formally speaking (this isn't directed specifically at you KaiXIII, I figure someone will probably mention this down the line and feel like I should get it out of the way now), what the Pope (or any other christian or islam or what have you; though actually, the catholic church does acknowledge evolution last I checked) believes isn't really a "theory", at least by the definition science uses.

The word "theory" in general use usually denotes an uncertain fact, a collection of guesses and shaky infferences, etc, but that's not what the word means to science at all.

A scientific theory is basically a collection of explanations for a certain observed phenomenon in nature. You have the fact of gravity, you also have the theory of gravity. You have the fact of eletromagnetism, you have the theory of electromagnetism. And of course, you have the fact of evolution, and the fact of evolution.

A scientific theory has to stand up to scrutiny; it has to have proof (and a lot of it), must be coherent with observed data, must be testable, must be able to make predictions, and it must be falsifiable. Contrary to what many anti-evolutionists will have you believe, evolution fits all that criteria.

There is little debate amongst scientists about the facts/basics of evolution and whether it happened or not. What's disputed is the exact mechanics of evolution, what factors were more important in shaping the evolution of life, etc.

Creationism (or intelligent design, or whatever you want to call it, it boils down to the same thing), on the other hand, fits none of that. It's like saying "it was magic" and being done with it. It's nowhere near on the level of evolution.

 

I am sick and tired of the blatant ignorance on the topic of evolution. People who say that evolution contradicts itself or doesn't make sense obviously don't understand evolution. To think that we evolved from monkeys makes you an idiot. We share a common ancestor, we did not evolve from monkeys or apes.

Evolution consists of natural selection which (unconsciously and completely without purpose) decides which genes survive in the gene pool. The more successful a gene is in the environment of the other genes as well as the external environment of the individual survival machine decides how populous a particular gene is. This is natural selection. It also explains why we are so protective of our kin (they are more likely to carry the same genes as ourselves) and of other humans (as misfiring as the gene mentioned before; we used to live in small communities for a long period of time. Large cities mean that we assume that we will meet anyone we come across again even though the chance of that happening is minuscule. This changes our behaviour towards this individual. We are more likely to be nice towards this person in order to increase the probability that we survive long enough to have offspring. This is why genetic disorders such as dementia and Alzheimer's are so common. This is because the symptoms of these disorders occur after the fertile years. This means reproduction is not affected and therefore the defective genes are passed on, even though the affects of such reproduction are usually eventually **** they don't affect the organism in the short term.

 

I honestly believe that God created evolution. He programmed us to be able to adapt to our environment for survival. Adam and Eve did not necessarily have to be humans the way we envision them, or even humans at all. And really, if you think about it, doesn't it make sense that if He created us, He would give us the best means necessary for survival?

I know I'm probably going to get flamed by both sides for saying that, but it's my opinion, so deal with it.

 

Quoted for truth.What happened was as primates began to evolve a virus spread amoung some of the primates.This was a disease on the genetic level that took two letters out of the genetic code of the primates causing there bodies and minds to evolve passed the usual rate and allowed the birth of mankind.the reason behind mankind is because of a genetic disease that is inside every human being in the history of mankind.

 

Contrary to my usual MO, I'm NOT going to get too involved in this discussion, simply because I'm feeling kinda off my debatage skillz right now.

I believe in Evolution, wholeheartedly, unreservedly. There is just too much evidence available in favor of it. Hell, even now, in the Congo jungle, Chimpanzees have, in the last few years, developed a technique to modify sticks and logs, store them for later use, and use them in the future to bash open beehives to obtain a substance which has little real benefit to them - honey.

This is not an evolutionary advantage - it is a creative leap, brought on by an evolutionary change. Not only are they using tools, they are storing them - pure evidence of thought of an ill-defined future which, a few decades ago, there was no evidence of. This is evolution in action, people - animals, slowly but surely, gaining intelligence. I can see in a few centuries, if they live that long as a species, rudimentary stone tool use among chimps.

We can see it happen even faster in the evolution of penicillin-resistant tuberculosis and AIDS, both of which evolved in one human lifetime. Viruses and bacteria evolve phenomenally fast.

Whereas creationists (and to a lesser extent, Intelligent Design theorists - merely another breed of Creationists) say, almost exclusively, "God did it", without any supporting evidence or proof, claiming it all got washed away in some kind of universal flood.

 

I would just like to point out that the sentence "I believe in Evolution" makes no sense. You don't "believe" in it, you know it to be an extremely accurate theory that is backed up by a mountain of evidence.

You can only belief in something where there is not enough evidence to be sure. In the case of Creationism there is no evidence (contrary to seemingly popular belief, the Bible is not a source of evidence) and therefore can be "believed" in.

 

Belief doesn't have to be in the religious sense - you can believe in a theory, until it has been proven beyond a doubt (or accepted for so long that it becomes a law). While Evolution does have a HUGE body of evidence, it's not enough until it is repeatable and measurable.

 

I suppose, although evolution is already repeatable (surely all the examples you quoted count? Not only that but a species of fly has been seen to evolve and a new species emerge.) and measurable (the entire field of genetics is testament to that).

 

To an extent, but we can never predict what path an animal will take. In that, we still have no idea how it works. We know WHY it works, and we know the base mechanics, and we can predict along what lines things are likely to evolve, but we don't know what started it all (although there have en experiments along that line, and there are several likely theories).

 

I am a firm believer in creationism. The idea that an entire universe was created by sheer coincidence seems more far fetched than the idea that we were a creation designed by something far greater than we can understand.

 

Who created that something?

 

Convenient, isn't it, how the Christians (and other religions) throw the "unknowable" concept of eternity in the faces of unbelievers whenever they have an unanswerable question or logical fallacy?

 

Far fetched is quite a ******ed choice of words. Science and the hypotheses flown from it are more often than not acknowledged due to their logic and coherence. Evolution is a good example actually.

I ask of thee: given the aeons of time that have passed, is it really so improbable for a coincidence to have occured?

You are correct. It is indeed not at all far fetched that something "that we cannot understand" (*rolls over the floor laughing* :D) went zap and an entire universe was created.
And how did he do it? Beats me. Beats you. Beats us all. We'll just say that we can't understand it and call it a day. ;)

 

How droll...

Is it really so far beyond your spectrum of understanding that you are willing to place barriers on time itself? I'm not saying that religion is the answer. Believe me, the flaws in religion are great and many. What I am saying is that I am willing to place all my chips on the bet that says we are a design not an accident. The human mind and genome is infinitely complex as is the creator behind it. I won't pretend to know how things came to be, all any of us can really do is speculate. I do know that I will not lean on the reasoning of science 100%. After all, evolution is only part of a design.

 

You do realize you're just basically making subjective assertions, right?

 

Yes, I will limit time, or at least, time as is relevant to this universe. The universe exploded out of some chance reaction in the pre-universal mote (that was without size, since there was no universe to give it size), over 12 billion years ago (we have not yet been able to see the dawn of time, because we can't look far enough away (as you look farther in space, you look back in time), but we can see that the universe gets progressively smaller and the galaxies progressively closer together as we look farther away), and before that, who can know? It may have been another universe, if the previous one collapsed, or it may have been some kind of trans-universal bubble starting off the Big Bang, or something as yet incomprehensible to conventional science.

Evolution is most definitely NOT a design. It is random chance guided only by successful and unsuccessful genes. You can put total faith in science because eventually, science will answer every question meaningful to mankind. Scientists can do a lot more than speculate. We can observe many processes in action, including evolution, and, to an extent, prove them. We can, in a basic way, guide evolution. The only thing left for us to do is start off the whole process from non-living elements.

 

In similar fashion, I say that :
I find it far more plausible that the universe was created by sheer coincidence, rather than being created by an entity whose own existence brings us to the original problem.



Then again, what do we gain by arguing? It's not like someone's going to change opinion over reading a comment on the Internet, LET ALONE ON A KINGDOM HEARTS WEBISTE.