Creation vs. Evolution

[GT4_Rule]

the only question I have about humans evolving is.....drumroll....... why are we so damn smart? we're the only creature that we know of, that thinks about it's existence in the long run. and examines the universe...and contemplates our own existance... why is there nothing else even remotly close?we built cars, and houses out of steel, that we made out of rocks, and build fires, on purpose, but put them out..we argue about things that don't matter, like how long our species has existed....why?

and, as you say there is proof we havent been here for as long as everything else, you're never going to convince somebody who believes the direct opposite otherwise, without them seeing the evidence firsthand. You can't just tell them what other people found to be true, that's not the way the human mind works.

TM - not that I disagree with you about evo, BUT, If a group of scientists found the same level of proof, that humans DID in fact, inhabit the earth for all of it's existance, would you change your mind? even though other groups of scientists disagreed? I'm sure you'd want to see and hear all the details, at LEAST, before you even considered changing your mind, and that's not even your religion, that's just knowledge you've aquired.

P.S. frankly, most people arent smart enough to understand all the things necessary to realize wether or not these things are real or false as well.

I agree on that. How did we become to invent language, formulas, science and technology? Even monkeys weren't that smart; I see a big gap in intelligence between chimps and humans.

 

[Touring Mars]

TM - not that I disagree with you about evo, BUT, If a group of scientists found the same level of proof, that humans DID in fact, inhabit the earth for all of it's existance, would you change your mind? even though other groups of scientists disagreed?

It's a bit of a trick question, because if a group of scientists found 'the same level of proof' that Man has always existed on Earth as the rest of the world's scientists who say that Man hasn't, then both would have to be considered as wrong as each other since both of their 'proofs' cannot possibly be right. In order to make a sensible assessment, you need to look at the evidence you actually have. The evidence, however, as it stands, point completely and utterly towards the fact that Man did not always exist. Moreover, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that Man has inhabited Earth for as long as every other living thing.

the only question I have about humans evolving is.....drumroll....... why are we so damn smart? we're the only creature that we know of, that thinks about it's existence in the long run. and examines the universe...and contemplates our own existance... why is there nothing else even remotly close?we built cars, and houses out of steel, that we made out of rocks, and build fires, on purpose, but put them out..we argue about things that don't matter, like how long our species has existed....why?.

We may be the 'most intelligent' animals on Earth, but it is all relative. In another million years or so, our descendants will consider the species Homo sapiens as dumb as we currently consider neanderthals. But in their time, neanderthal man was head and shoulders above everything else - but it wasn't always the case. Modern man has evolved from a lineage where brain size and (more importantly) brain activity became an advantageous trait. Similar species to us simply lost the battle (with us) for survival...

Yes, we may be the most intelligent living things on the planet, but if you look at our place (at the top) of the animal kingdom in a broader context that considers all living things, it is quite clear to see that we are not that much smarter than other things as you may think... e.g. dolphins are far more 'more intelligent' than worms than we are more intelligent than dolphins. Across the kingdoms of life, there is a continuum of intelligence - and ours can be attributed to our unique evolutionary history (indeed, all modern day animals have a 'unique' evolutionary history too)... Yes, humans are very special animals, but our intelligence can be explained rationally...

 

[LeadSlead#2]

It's a bit of a trick question, because if a group of scientists found 'the same level of proof' that Man has always existed on Earth as the rest of the world's scientists who say that Man hasn't, then both would have to be considered as wrong as each other since both of their 'proofs' cannot possibly be right. In order to make a sensible assessment, you need to look at the evidence you actually have. The evidence, however, as it stands, point completely and utterly towards the fact that Man did not always exist. Moreover, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that Man has inhabited Earth for as long as every other living thing. ...

but you're looking at it as though it's impossible that science is wrong. We all know science has "been wrong" in the past...many things have been considered "fact" before, and turned out untrue
like the brontosaurous...never existed. But it did when I was a kid, it took a few years, and they decided it was never real, they were mixing bones!

Yes, we may be the most intelligent living things on the planet, but if you look at our place (at the top) of the animal kingdom in a broader context that considers all living things, it is quite clear to see that we are not that much smarter than other things as you may think... e.g. dolphins are far more 'more intelligent' than worms than we are more intelligent than dolphins. Across the kingdoms of life, there is a continuum of intelligence - and ours can be attributed to our unique evolutionary history (indeed, all modern day animals have a 'unique' evolutionary history too)... Yes, humans are very special animals, but our intelligence can be explained rationally...

I challenge that. Dolphins are more levels of intelligent higher than worms, than we are dolphins? no. we are, without a doubt in my mind, a few clicks past the next species than any other species is over another. (a bit of a circle) besides, even if we werent, thats like comparing Michael Jordan to a college player. and than comparing the college player to a 5 year-old, and saying "look! he's not that much better!" "look how the college player beats the little kid way worse!"

Here's a question, no strings, just an honest question: How do we find fossils of neanderthals, and other human-like creatures, when, human bones decay completley in what? 10 years? certainly within a century, unless preserved by people, no?

 

[Touring Mars]

but you're looking at it as though it's impossible that science is wrong.

That's totally the opposite to what I'm saying. I said that if 'proof' were found to equally support two completely opposing theories, then both of them must be equally wrong... that's not to say that one of them may later turn out to be right, it just means that if two opposing theories are equally supported by the evidence, then you need more evidence to distinguish which theory is more correct... that's how scientific theories develop... as more evidence is found, the theory which best explains all of the evidence is kept, and the theory which fails to also explain the new evidence is discarded.

In this specific example, there was a time when there was not enough evidence to be able to say whether or not Man has always existed on Earth (or atleast for as long as life has existed on Earth anyway...) but that time is long passed. There is now overwhleming evidence to support the theory that Man has not always existed on Earth, and no evidence to support the opposite.

We all know science has "been wrong" in the past...many things have been considered "fact" before, and turned out untrue

But the facts themselves do not change - only our (mis)understanding of the facts changes.

I challenge that. Dolphins are more levels of intelligent higher than worms, than we are dolphins? no. we are, without a doubt in my mind, a few clicks past the next species than any other species is over another. (a bit of a circle)

Humans are the most intelligent species on the planet, yes... but other great apes have most of the facilities that we have, including the ability for forward planning (as this very recent study published in the journal 'Science' describes) as well as many other advanced skills that define 'intelligence'. Dolphins communicate with each other intelligently, far more so than the vast majority of other living things can (with humans being an obvious albeit rare exception). I find it almost a form of human chauvanism that we disregard the intelligence of other animals as 'quaint', when infact they are very advanced indeed....

besides, even if we werent, thats like comparing Michael Jordan to a college player. and than comparing the college player to a 5 year-old, and saying "look! he's not that much better!" "look how the college player beats the little kid way worse!"

That is exactly my point... before we can make meaningful comparisons of how 'intelligent' different animals are, we need to define what intelligence is. Intelligence is not just 'book-smarts'... intelligence, in the context of this discussion, covers the entire gamut of mental abilities, from the deepest subconscious processes, to higher abilities such as communication and conscious thought...

Here's a question, no strings, just an honest question: How do we find fossils of neanderthals, and other human-like creatures, when, human bones decay completley in what? 10 years? certainly within a century, unless preserved by people, no?

What you're basically asking is "Why do we get fossils at all?" Most fossils are not bones, anyway, but rocks which have formed with the impressions of animal skeletons left behind. But yes, there are plenty of fossilised bones to be found... but if you want to know more about how bones are preserved as fossils, you should ask a paleontologist...

 

[LeadSlead#2]

you missed the point of the Michael Jordan thing... the point is, your taking the best, than taking a much lower being, stating the difference, than finding the worst you can, and comparing those two.
I.E.,
Humans - 1000
Dolphins - 580
Worms - 12
and you say LOOK! it's closer to us.

BUT, here's the whole picture
Humans - 1000
Monkeys - 600
Dolphins - 580
Cats - 540
Dogs - 510
Elephants - 475 and it takes a long time to get to worms

you see the gap? that's what I'm talking about
it's where that darned missing link goes

 

[Touring Mars]

It's all relative/comparitive... if we take humans as the '100%' level (i.e. the most intelligent species on the planet), then we can define a scale (albeit an arbitrary/self-referential one....) For this scale, I'll also define zero as being 'Non-conscious lifeforms' (NCLF), so we have:-

Humans = 100
NCLF = 0

Now, where we put other 'Conscious lifeforms' is potentially highly subjective, but we could use some criteria, such as 'capacity for expressing emotions' or 'communication' to assign a score to another species... but is our scale linear or exponential? And at what point do we reach a 'critical point' that makes a species, from our perspective, intelligent?

Humans = 100
Dolphin = 10
Worm = 1
NCLF = 0

Is this realistic? I'd say not... I'd say that we weren't '10 times' - since they are capable of extremely complex, higher mental abilities... so let's say they we are twice as 'intelligent' as they are... so...

Humans = 100
Dolphin = 50
Worm = 1
NCLF = 0

Now look at the worm, the worm is infinitely more intelligent than an NCLF (by definition, since NCLF's are 0...), but I'd say that a dolphin was many times more intelligent than 50 times more intelligent than a worm... and humans are certainly '100 times' more intelligent than worms... so now let's adjust worms down a notch or two...

Humans = 100
Dolphins = 50
Worm = 0.001
NCLF = 0

Now you can stick other animals in wherever you want, but the point is that the scale doesn't really matter... the fact is that no other animal is capable of stuff that we are, but many many more are uncapable of what both humans and dolphins are capable of mentally... it is not a linear scale, but an exponential one...

Just for a laugh, here is my estimate of what would be a fair scale...

Humans = 100
Dolphins = 50
Whales/Sharks=10
Chimps = 10
Cats = 2
Dogs = 1
Stupid Dogs = 0.9
Hamsters = 0.1
Flies = 0.01
Worms = 0.001
NCLF = 0

you see the gap? that's what I'm talking about
it's where that darned missing link goes

The way I see it, there is no missing links, just a continuum....

 

[wfooshee]

It is helpful to keep the discussion relevant to human evolution, and not concern ourselves overly much with more complex issues such as the origins of the universe, the origins of matter, and the processes by which biological molecules came to exist on this planet.

Except that creationists don't make that distinction. The discussions above relating to the origins of the universe are, to a creationist, the same discussion relating to the origin of Man. To them, it all happened at the same time, so it's the same event.

 

[Famine]

you missed the point of the Michael Jordan thing... the point is, your taking the best, than taking a much lower being, stating the difference, than finding the worst you can, and comparing those two.
I.E.,
Humans - 1000
Dolphins - 580
Worms - 12
and you say LOOK! it's closer to us.

BUT, here's the whole picture
Humans - 1000
Monkeys - 600
Dolphins - 580
Cats - 540
Dogs - 510
Elephants - 475 and it takes a long time to get to worms

you see the gap? that's what I'm talking about
it's where that darned missing link goes

Almost literally.

One thing mankind is good at - and always has been - is moving somewhere, adapting the place for his purpose and wiping out competitor species. Our early stages away from the apes were marked by the coexistance of several anthropoid species - but one was slightly smarter than the others and wiped them out before they could wipe him out.

It's like the plot of Terminator. We make smart machines and the first thing the machines see as a threat to their existence is the people that made them - goodbye people.

If we hadn't killed every competitor, we'd probably see a couple of underclass human species - and they'd probably have been the slaves in place of black Africans, and probably still would be - which would be smarter than other animals but dumber than us, filling the "gap" you perceive.


Less smart hominids existed - they were just slaughtered by the slightly smarter ones.

 

[Swift]

Except that creationists don't make that distinction. The discussions above relating to the origins of the universe are, to a creationist, the same discussion relating to the origin of Man. To them, it all happened at the same time, so it's the same event.

That was a broadly innacurate generalization. Even if you go by the exact 6 day creation.

Infact, the creation of the world and creation of man are two completely seperate and unique events.

 

[wfooshee]

That was a broadly innacurate generalization. Even if you go by the exact 6 day creation.

Infact, the creation of the world and creation of man are two completely seperate and unique events.

Sorry to lump it all together. Perhaps I should have said had the same cause.

My point is that in creationism, there is really no separation between the creation of the universe and the creation of man. If you want 2 or 3 or 4 "Poofs!" instead of one, fine.

 

[Touring Mars]

My point is that in creationism, there is no really separation between the creation of the universe and the creation of man.

Exactly, and that is Creationism's biggest single error... debating the origins of the universe in the same breath as Mankind's place in the tree of life is a complete waste of time...

If you want 2 or 3 or 4 "Poofs!" instead of one, fine.

 

[TheCracker]

If we hadn't killed every competitor, we'd probably see a couple of underclass human species - and they'd probably have been the slaves in place of black Africans, and probably still would be - which would be smarter than other animals but dumber than us, filling the "gap" you perceive.

Less smart hominids existed - they were just slaughtered by the slightly smarter ones.

You've obviously never visited Derby

 

[ledhed]

They did not even need to be slaughtered..they just lost in the competition for the available food and shelter . It could also be they were less likely to adapt to climate change and or bacteria or other factors like virus . Or it could be a combination of all of it .

 

[Touring Mars]

They did not even need to be slaughtered..they just lost in the competition for the available food and shelter . It could also be they were less likely to adapt to climate change and or bacteria or other factors like virus . Or it could be a combination of all of it .

Are we still talking about Derby?

 

[Danoff]

We may be the 'most intelligent' animals on Earth, but it is all relative. In another million years or so, our descendants will consider the species Homo sapiens as dumb as we currently consider neanderthals. But in their time, neanderthal man was head and shoulders above everything else - but it wasn't always the case. Modern man has evolved from a lineage where brain size and (more importantly) brain activity became an advantageous trait. Similar species to us simply lost the battle (with us) for survival...

It's true that early man was subject to natural selection - which engineered man over thousands of years to become more intelligent, think in abstracts, and use tools. But we're not currently evolving. Not in any significant way anyway.

If we don't do some genetic engineering or develop cybernetics or something, mankind a million years from now will be exactly as smart (but have more knowledge) as we are today. They won't think we're stupid, just that we didn't have the benefit of time.

 

[wfooshee]

It's true that early man was subject to natural selection - which engineered man over thousands of years to become more intelligent, think in abstracts, and use tools. But we're not currently evolving. Not in any significant way anyway.

If we don't do some genetic engineering or develop cybernetics or something, mankind a million years from now will be exactly as smart (but have more knowledge) as we are today. They won't think we're stupid, just that we didn't have the benefit of time.

That sounds an awful lot like Everything that's going to happen HAS happened, there will be nothing new. Ever.

Or, we may as well close the patent office, nothing new will ever be invented.

We ARE changing. Call it adapting, if you like. We are taller than even just a few hundred years ago, much less thousands. We live longer, too. Not just through medical advance, as for example, a 45-year-old Native American from before Christ's time would have the appearance of someone today that we would guess to be 75 or 80.

 

[Danoff]

That sounds an awful lot like Everything that's going to happen HAS happened, there will be nothing new. Ever.

Or, we may as well close the patent office, nothing new will ever be invented.

Not at all what I'm saying.

We ARE changing. Call it adapting, if you like. We are taller than even just a few hundred years ago, much less thousands. We live longer, too. Not just through medical advance, as for example, a 45-year-old Native American from before Christ's time would have the appearance of someone today that we would guess to be 75 or 80.

We live longer because we eat better, and because of medicine. That much is obvious (just look at countries where that doesn't happen). We're taller for the same reason - and because we don't stunt our growth by doing heavy physical labor at a young age.


We are not evolving biologically. Our brains are not getting any smarter, our fingers are not getting any more dexterous.

If you understood evolution properly, you'd understand that we're no longer evolving. In order for evolution to occur, natural selection must occur. But we've stopped that almost entirely in developed countries.

 

[wfooshee]

Evolution occurs on timescales large enough that it cannot be observed (except perhaps at a couple of traffic lights in this area ) and the results of evolution must be inferred from the fossil record. The 20 to 100 thousand years we've been around are insignificant on this scale.

To say we are NOT evolving is to ignore the timescale involved. No, we are not a different species than we were 20,000 years ago, but that is not to say that adaptations are not working their way into the genome. The selection may become less and less "natural" as we learn about the genome, but that's only in the last half-century. There is nothing preventing the emergence of something beyond us, that may replace us, as we replaced earlier hominids.

A Neanderthal who had the wit to comprehend the theory (obviously self-contradictory) would have said the same thing.

"Hmmf. Grog at top of food chain. Nobody else out there. Me finished product! Life good!"

Wham! Along comes US, and we take over. Didn't happen overnight, took hundreds of generations, perhaps.

 

[Danoff]

To say we are NOT evolving is to ignore the timescale involved.

I'm not ignorning the timescale. We're not practicing natural selection. In order for evolution to occur people must die prior to procreating. Almost everyone in developed countries can procreate. Sure, some people don't procreate and some procreate more than others, but generally speaking there aren't trends for the types of people invovled (ie: it's not short people, or stupid people who are not having babies). In order for evolution to work, some people need to not pass on their genes.

Medicine has made it possible for us to stop evolution almost completely.

 

[Rogue Ssv]

The problem, as I see it, is that we all think that we are already the smartest and best, and many of us do not realize that in a mere 100 years, many more amazing inventions and useful tools will have been invented, and many of our current superstitions and theories my be considered stupid.

And yes, we are relativeley insignificant. My teacher has a book that has 1000 pages that shows the time periods of all of the different species and evolution(ism?)s and we only come in in the last half page.

EDIT-- danoff, medicine has NOT made it possible for us to stop evolution, havent you ever read Popular Science?
My point is, regardless of what we may think that we know now, we are always inventing and discovering new things. We do not even know what lies in the bottom of our own oceans, much less out in space, and the universe is much, MUCH bigger than our humble solar system. New technologies are being developed every day to help us reach these things, and we will discover much, much more then we currently know.

 

[Danoff]

EDIT-- danoff, medicine has NOT made it possible for us to stop evolution, havent you ever read Popular Science?

Explain to me how mankind is evolving today.

 

[Famine]

That's just stuff - technology.

The species isn't evolving biologically. Medical technology means that we no longer select out the "weak" genomes. We protect and nurture our disabled, for instance, and they can survive to breeding age and procreate - if we were still animals then not only would we not look after them, we'd kill them at birth. There are no favourable traits either - other than owning a Lincoln Continental. We don't have "survival of the fittest", we have "survival of almost everyone" - "flawed" genes have just as much chance of being passed on to the next generation as "strong" ones, and are not "selected out".

 

[Rogue Ssv]

Well, we are currently working on cures to cancer and the avian flu, and when we find them, that will be 2 less illnesses to bother us.
And who knows, if we will discover something to prolong our lives or a general strengthener for our immune systems in the rainforest or ocean?

EDIT--oh, Famine, now I get it. Well then... but what happens if there is some new, horrible epidemic or something? That only Asian people can survive through?

And what do Continentals have to do with it?

 

[wfooshee]

In order for evolution to occur people must die prior to procreating.

Now we have the flaw in your thinking. . . . Don't confuse evolution with extinction. Evolution is the changing of the genome. It has nothing to do with a species dying off because it can't produce offspring. Natural selection does not mean sudden sterility or even early death of the child-bearing generation. It means that as the environment, or competition for the environment, changes, the species must adapt or die. If that means offspring can't survive, then a species goes extinct. If, however, something once thought not quite right (webbed fingers) gets selected by success in the environment, the species changes, perhaps enough to become another species entirely over many generations. Something similar to an otter becomes something similar to a seal. Eventually. The otter may yet survive, or he may get beaten out of his niche by say, a type of beaver.

Evolution does not require extinction, yet extinction is the probable result of failure to adapt. This is NOT contradictory.

 

[Danoff]

Evolution does not require extinction, yet extinction is the probable result of failure to adapt. This is NOT contradictory.

I understand this fully. I'm saying that natural selection WITHIN the human species is no longer occuring because most people survive to the age where they procreate (so all genes get passed on). Evolution only works if some genes get selected out. We prevent that with medicine.

See Famine's post.

 

[Famine]

And what do Continentals have to do with it?

Ladies love a big car.

 

[Kylehnat]

Let's see if I can actually add to this without being repetitive

I agree that human beings aren't really evolving much. However, it's hard to say that our evolution is over, since we're alive for a microscopic amount of time. In a million years, will humans still be completely the same physiologically? That would be hard to digest, seeing as how far we've come in the last million years.

But the next question is: have humans ended their own evolution? The reason we don't appear to be evolving is because, as Famine, danoff, et al have mentioned, we are no longer "weeding out" weak genes, because there is no need to. We are no longer being chased by bears, ravaged by disease, and curious as to what would happen if we threw Crog off a cliff. There are no longer environmental threats to our species, because we completely control that environment. We eat animals, but we no longer have to risk our lives hunting them. It might be 130 degrees outside, but we can just turn on the air conditioning. There might be a hurricane, but our house is not going to collapse on us. Because of our technological advances, and increased knowledge, the threats that early humans faced are not threats to us today. Our species was smart enough to figure out how to get away from those threats. Any current danger to our survival affects everyone equally, strong and weak alike, which eliminates the necessity of evolution to sustain our species.

 

[Danoff]

Yup,

Human beings have laregly ended our own evolution by ensuring that most people survive until they're old enough to breed. Everything that happens after that is totally pointless from a biological evolutionary point of view (provided the kids survive of course). We still have a little bit of evolution associated with infant mortality, but for the most part it's finished with.

People often tell me things like, "well in the future we'll have giant brains and long fingers because we spend all day thinking and typing." Of course that makes no sense at all when you think about how evolution occurs. In order for that to happen, people with larger brains and more dexterous fingers would need to be passing on their genes more often than the people who didn't have those traits. If anything, it's the other way around.

What I'm wondering is when we'll start our evolution again. I expect that it will happen, we will start genetically engineering ourselves... I'm just wondering when and how.

 

[wfooshee]

I don't see how anyone can say that evolution has stopped. I'm sorry, I just don't buy it.

Take, for example, the fact that we care for the "defective" traits that in an animal world would be culled out, such as a diseased child, a deformed baby, an injured adolescent. In our society, through modern medical care, these individuals can survive to pass on their genetic material. And yet you say we are not changing the genome???? These genes' share of the pool is increasing, merely because we force them to survive. Where will it lead? I don't know. It's changing us somewhere, though. That is evolution. It's not necessarily Natural Selection (as in adapting to environmental difficulties) but it's evolution. The proverbial Mad Scientist from Hollywood would come out against such "dilution" of the gene pool on the basis that such tolerance has to be negative, to make us weaker as a species.

My point is that the genome can change, gradually, without humans being overwhelmed by a new order. Native Americans (those I'm aware of) have no beards. Is that a racial characteristic, or an evolutionary adaptation? Personally, I don't know.

 

[Danoff]

I don't see how anyone can say that evolution has stopped. I'm sorry, I just don't buy it.

Take, for example, the fact that we care for the "defective" traits that in an animal world would be culled out, such as a diseased child, a deformed baby, an injured adolescent. In our society, through modern medical care, these individuals can survive to pass on their genetic material. And yet you say we are not changing the genome????

Yup. Allowing all (or nearly all) offspring to procreate = not changing the genome.

Here's what your above quote sounds like when I read it:

"Take, for example, the fact that we've eliminated natural selection. In that animal world, natural selection occurs, but since we've eliminated natural selection in the human world, you say we're not changing the genome???"

Yup. Animal world = changing genome. Human world = nearly stationary genome. Without natural selection, evolution does not occur - surely you can agree with that. If you understand evolution at all you know that it relies on natural selection.