For the "scientists" here who believe in evolution: what will we evolve into next?

[SamCA]

Isidore_AK:

C’mon, you need another option:

We will evolve into super-powered humans: i.e. the X-Men

Heh. It’d be interesting to see how the Church would react to the whole X-Men style mutant thing. I mean, it’s total fantasy, but it’d be interesting anyway.

I’ve noticed that in the comics, the religious right tends to be pretty anti-mutant…

 

[Diddi]

kev7:

Here are some interesting thoughts

1. God could of created the world yesterday and you would never know.
2. God could of created an instance of the universe just for you. In other words, everything in the world that has happened and is going to happen could just be for you.
3. As long as we live we will never be able to know for fact that God exists. You will never be able to prove it and you will never be able to dispprove it.
4. God exists outside of our concept of time. So you don’t know what the 7 days of creation means and you never will.

I think that God is perfect and so is his creation. It doesn’t mater how much we as humans think we know about the universe we will never be able to understand God. The moment we think that we can become just like God is the moment we fall from grace.

I think a innocent child knows more about the universe then the worlds most inteligent people. The child knows how to love and how to have faith in something he can not prove.

Well stated kev7!

Belief in or even acceptance of evolution will never get anybody into heaven.

The theory of evolution (surprisingly similar to today’s theory minus the Darwinian mechanism) was originated by the ancient Greeks (Democritus around 400 BC and Epicurus around 300 BC) and Jesus never mentioned it as important for salvation. It must have slipped his mind.

The ancient Greeks also gave us the theory of atomism (that matter is made of atoms) and Eratosthenes (around 200 BC) stated that the earth was round and proposed a method of measuring its circumference that works! This was some 15-17 hundred years before modern science was even invented.

There are two things about science that give it an aura of majesty that should always be remembered.

1. Science has an amazing ability to gather credit to itself (like a rolling snowball). Its built into the system, for discovery doesn’t count until it is done “scientifically.”
2. Science is self cleaning (like an melting ice cube). If science says something is proven fact, which later turns out to be false, then that was not science. The new fact is science, unless its also found to be wrong. Then that wasn’t science either. The latest fact is always the scientific one.

Now these two qualities of science are actually good things unless they lull you into the fiction that science is always right or that science it the only way to discover truth.

 

[siamesecat]

My understanding of evolution would be we wouldnt know what we’d become for millions of years…but have u heard of people being born without appendixes? In some animals, the appendix is necessary and the animal would die with this mutation. But in people, we dont need them, which is why they sometimes rupture, and the person can live a normal life. If this person happend to reproduce with another person lacking an appendix, theres a good chance their kids wouldnt have them etc. and a small evolvement in our species could spread. I think it would be little things like this. One major thing with evolution in animals is that those with stronger traits live longer and produce more offspring, causing more widespread evolution. But with people, our medical advances make this less likely to occur and, for example, in the human world women dont always look for the toughest, strongest, guy out there, so the weak guys have a chance. Not so in the animal kingdom. Humans are less likely to evolve because we understand our genetics. Say a person is born with a tail. We know that if they had kids with another person who had a tail their kids would have them, and so the person probably wouldnt have kids with this person. In the animal world, they dont understand this, and tails could spread. I dont know if you get what im getting at, but I think its harder for humans to evolve. Remember that case where that woman had a disease that caused webbed toes and fingers and people slammed her for having kids knowing the conditon could be passed on? People with genetic abnormalities feel societal pressure not to reproduce, and therefor minor evolvements are less likely to happen to us, preventing drastic evolution over time.

 

[Diddi]

puzzleannie:

there is a woman anthropologist, I believe from England or Wales, who had a popular book out about 20 years ago with the theory that humans actually evolved from aquatic mammals, not from apes, that we actually have more in common with other large mammals which are, or were, at one time, aquatic, hippos, elephants, whales, manatees etc. even the pig. I guess the theory is when the glaciers melted after one of the ice ages and oceans covered a large part of the earth, we and all these other mammals were aquatic, spending most of the time swimming but coming on shore to mate and give birth, like seals. I don’t recall if she said we had gills, like that Kevin Costner movie Waterworld. So evolving in this direction would actually be moving backward.

You’re talking about the book “The Descent of Woman” by Elaine Morgan published in 1972.

Sorry, we’re still descended from apes according to Elaine, but the evolutionary emphasis is placed on women, not men.

According to Ms. Morgan, when our female ancestors moved into an aquatic environment, they gained a subcutaneous fat layer (like that found in the aquatic mammals you mentioned above) and lost most of their body hair. Because they were waders, they retained the hair on the top of their heads. The mammary glands developed into flotation devises that their infants could hold onto. They also developed and erect posture and bipedal locomotion during this aquatic stage.

According to Morgan, our female ancestors descended from trees, then waded in swamps, then moved out into the planes where they tamed fire and invented language and tools. Men were merely forced to evolve to keep up with the progress made by women.

 

[SamCA]

Diddi:

The theory of evolution (surprisingly similar to today’s theory minus the Darwinian mechanism) was originated by the ancient Greeks (Democritus around 400 BC and Epicurus around 300 BC)

Do you have any information on where I might find more information about this? I’d like to read more, it sounds fascinating.

Thanks,
Sam

 

[Ghosty]

According to Morgan, our female ancestors descended from trees, then waded in swamps, then moved out into the planes where they tamed fire and invented language and tools. Men were merely forced to evolve to keep up with the progress made by women.

LOL! How, pray tell, were these women evolving without equal and contemporaneous evolution of men? That theory defies all aspects of logic as it relates to genetics. Good for a laugh, though

 

[Diddi]

“Don’t forget sharks! Those things haven’t evolved since before life as we know it existed on land. Sharks are the absolute pinnacle of evolutionary success.” quote Ghosty

Sorry to contradict you, but nope. Sharks began with *Cladoselache * way back in the Paleozoic era. They’ve been evolving since. Carcharodon megalodon evolved to giant size - it had a mouth six feet high when partially opened. The modern goblin shark has evolved a really wacky nose. The modern great white Carcharodon carcharias has evolved for life in the water so that it is nearly impossible for it to breach. Evolution is a constant process.

It appears the above argument is due to semantics (differences in the meanings of terms). Macroevolution, the evolution of complex body parts or enzyme systems often resulting in radically new species, is not a constant process. On the other hand, microevolution, the relatively minor shifts in the proportions of alleles (genes) within a single species may be argued to be a constant process in most species.

But microevolution is not a controversial area. Not even strict creationists are against microevolution.

Strict evolutionists only confuse the debate by citing examples of microevolution when making the case for macroevolution. There is a huge difference between a simple color change, or maybe disease resistance, due to the accumulation of a single gene within a population and the development of a whole new sense organ, or maybe an irreducibly complex enzyme system, involving hundreds of genes, many of which would have no function unless the whole system is in place.

There is no evidence that a new species of shark has evolved in the last thirty million years. In fact, there has not been a single documented case of a new species of any type of organism arising in, lets say, the last 1000 years. This, of course, does not prove that no new species have arisen by natural selection during this time. It just means that it is impossible to distinguish between newly evolved species and already existing species that are merely newly discovered.

 

[Ghosty]

I want to point out that I absolutely believe in evolution. My shark comment was more tongue-in-cheek, but based on the fact that the basic design has remained the same for millions of years, as opposed to the crazy amount of variation seen in other genetic lines of evolution.

 

[Diddi]

Lazerlike42:

… but evolution IS something to be believed or not to be. There is nowhere near enough evidence to say it’s an observable fact ……

Steve Andersen:

I just don’t know how to respond to statements like that.

While the “hows” of evolution are obviously constantly revised as new data are observed (that is what science is about after all) the fact of evolution is not at all debatable.

it is independently supported by a dozen different disciplines.

Anatomy, physiology, geology, and molecular biology (the real nail in the coffin for any doubters)

What is not debatable are facts, such as the molecular biology data that organisms thought to be evolutionarily more closely related have proteins and nucleic acids that are more similar. These facts are either true or false.

What is debatable is mechanism. GM cars have more closely related components to each other that they do to, lets say, German cars but they only evolved in the minds of their creator-designers. There is even a sort of survival of the fittest in cars, but the competing designs were not created by random chance variations.

What makes the evolutionary debate so thrilling is that there is overwhelming evidence that evolution must have taken place (your view) and at the same time there is overwhelming evidence that the only feasible non-directed mechanism, Darwinian natural selection, can not by itself have accomplished the feat.

1. Evolution by natural selection takes time! The earth has simply not been in existence long enough to account for the amount of evolutionary change that had to take place if we only allow unaugmented natural selection. Even the most dedicated evolutionists recognize this fact and that is why they came up with punctuated equilibrium, viral transfer, seeding from other parts of the universe, etc., etc… Punctuated equilibrium is not a mechanism. It is merely slight of hand, science of the gaps.
2. There are irreducibly complex systems in every species that defy explanation via natural selection. The best evolutionists can say is “It must have happened because evolution is a fact.”

Now don’t get me wrong. I love evolutionary theory. I’ve framed every Biology course I’ve taught, from Botany to Entomology to Genetics to Human Anatomy and Physiology around the theory of evolution. I wouldn’t do that if I thought it was a bad theory, but until you give me a mechanism that is faster than natural selection and you can demonstrate experimentally how it can unravel an irreducibly complex system, I will say, “Let the debate continue.”

 

[Steve_Andersen]

Diddi:

What is not debatable are facts, such as the molecular biology data that organisms thought to be evolutionarily more closely related have proteins and nucleic acids that are more similar. These facts are either true or false.

What is debatable is mechanism.

that’s pretty much what I said…sorta but it is the finer details of the mechanism rather than the mechanism itself that is subject to serious debate.

Evolution of species through natural selection is one of the most “proven” theories on the planet

………What makes the evolutionary debate so thrilling is that there is overwhelming evidence that evolution must have taken place (your view) and at the same time there is overwhelming evidence that the only feasible non-directed mechanism, Darwinian natural selection, can not by itself have accomplished the feat.

Well obviously it did so you’re wrong.

  The process is clearly non directed when you consider that all species are built upon what came before (complete with flaws) rather than designed from scratch

That is why your GM car analogy is weak

Sure at times designers have to stick with certain parameters of earlier car designs because that is the way the factories are tooled but they occasionally can completely start from scratch. For example in the late 70s early 80s GM abandoned decades of body on chassis/rear wheel drive design in favor of unibody construction with transverse mounted engines

That is design…not evolution

Diddi:

1. Evolution by natural selection takes time! The earth has simply not been in existence long enough to account for the amount of evolutionary change that had to take place if we only allow unaugmented natural selection.

  Prove it.

 Since we are here and we have the fossil and molecular evidence to chronicle our development then 4.5 billions years was clearly enough time

……2. There are irreducibly complex systems in every species that defy explanation via natural selection.

 Arguments from incredulity are notoriously weak

 The “irreducibly complex” crowd had their 15 minutes and their arguments went the way of the young earthers.

……Now don’t get me wrong. I love evolutionary theory.

 Just like it is something that is not to be believed in or not it is also something that is not to be love or hated….it is a tool nothing more nothign less

……, but until you give me a mechanism that is faster than natural selection and you can demonstrate experimentally how it can unravel an irreducibly complex system, I will say, “Let the debate continue.”

Frankly there is not a whole lot to debate

But since you are challenging the prevailing theory, the convention is that you provide an alternative mechanism rather than just fold your arms and dismiss 150 years of detailed work by 1000s of scientists

for what it is worth, here’s a good link on irreducibly complex systems

talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html

 

[didymus]

Tom of Assisi:

Since so many people here seem to “belive in” evolution, my question is what do you think humans will evolve into next?

We won’t evolve any more. Natural selection depends on the “unfit” being killed off before they reach reproductive age. Once a primitice tribe figures out how to set a leg or bandage a cut it begins interfering with natural selection.

Compare that with modern medicine, capable of saving babies with genetic defects, treating once-deadly diseases – I’d say we’ve short-circuited human evolution.

 

[I_Leatherman]

Hello,
How does science arrive at dates for events and for creatures during, say, the last 50 million years. Has anyone examples, without asking you to go to too much trouble.

Cheerio Titans

 

[PhilVaz]

<< Hello, How does science arrive at dates for events and for creatures during, say, the last 50 million years. Has anyone examples, without asking you to go to too much trouble. >>

It’s all explained in some detail, with rebuttals to young-earth claims, in the article by Roger Wiens, Ph.D. physics, minor geology, and a Christian

Radiometric Dating, a Christian Perspective

Phil P

 

[Wormwood]

That would only change the frequency of an occurance of a particular trait in a population…it would not create new genes or new features. The environment does not change our genes.

Tell that to the hiroshima survivors and their offspring. Or the frogs of Michigan after the trenoble.

Natural selection depends on the “unfit” being killed off before they reach reproductive age. Once a primitice tribe figures out how to set a leg or bandage a cut it begins interfering with natural selection.

Compare that with modern medicine, capable of saving babies with genetic defects, treating once-deadly diseases – I’d say we’ve short-circuited human evolution.

Yup. But by enhancing genetics we may yet see future evolution, though admittedly not through natural selection.

Sorry, we’re still descended from apes according to Elaine, but the evolutionary emphasis is placed on women, not men.

Makes sense considering that the first civiliztions were ruled by kings and religions by patriarchy…it was the hyper evolved female stroking the primative male ego eh?

The theory of evolution (surprisingly similar to today’s theory minus the Darwinian mechanism) was originated by the ancient Greeks (Democritus around 400 BC and Epicurus around 300 BC) and Jesus never mentioned it as important for salvation. It must have slipped his mind.

Yeah, and Jesus never mentioned astronomy or calculus either, so by your logic they are not real? So the people at NASA use some early heresy to plot lunar orbits and such?

Actually the animals in this world do not have the souls that we have.

In which verse does this occur? Is this stated doctrine, or are you just assuming?

 

[Wormwood]

My agnosticism (which is doubtful of both sides) hates to admit that both sides may in fact be correct. When scientists decoded the human genome, there were many shocking, and possibly profound results. First of all, humans are not as complex as we like to think. A common bacteria has roughly 9,000 gene pairs…it was thought humans would therefore have hundreds of thousands of pairs. We have 30,000. All of these gene pairs can be accounted for on a genetic ladder, that is to say the ancestry of a species aquiring a gene could be deciphered. All of our genes were accounted for except 236 pair. The strangest part about the mystery genes is that we recieved all 236 at the same time from an evelutionary standpoint, that is to say there was no ancestor creature for us to have inherited from, the genes originated in us and all roughly at the same time. All other gene pairs were gathered slowly and over millions of years, but the 236 we got all at once. We are roughly 1% different from chimps on a genetic level, and 1% of 30,000 is 300…roughly 236…or all that seperates us from all other life on this planet. So it seems that evolution existed, AND then man was created from the “clay” of the earth which could have been an animal. With greater understanding of God’s universe, we will gain a better understanding of God itself. Curse you all for making me be the “good guy” this time!!

 

[siamesecat]

didymus:

We won’t evolve any more. Natural selection depends on the “unfit” being killed off before they reach reproductive age. Once a primitice tribe figures out how to set a leg or bandage a cut it begins interfering with natural selection.

Compare that with modern medicine, capable of saving babies with genetic defects, treating once-deadly diseases – I’d say we’ve short-circuited human evolution.

Exactly! My post was so much longer lol because I didn’t know how to say it that way. Thanks! It was driving me crazy trying to explain it so simply!