A question for Atheists?

Question

If Giraffes long necks evolved over millions of years so they could reach the trees to eat food,why did they not starve to death in millions of years before they got it?Wouldn't it be easier and more logical to say God created them that way?

Answer 1

It isn't that they couldn't eat with short necks, but it was more difficult. Do your research before you ask dumb questions.

Who created God then? Wouldn't it be easier to say THERE IS NO GOD?

Answer 2

Yes. Very good question. You answered your own question. Religion is like a child's tale to evolution. It's like instead of having an enormus bang and the billions of years that take planets and stars to form and the few molecule evolving into the species, you have a rather simple character just putting everything there. possibly the trees weren't as tall as they are now... or there was more grass on the savana so the giraffes didn't have to reach the tall trees? You should really look at all angles. There is a probablity for everything...ohh..im agnostic, not atheist... i figured close enough though.

Answer 3

It's not that giraffes' necks got longer to eat the leaves off the tops of trees, but rather that the giraffe's descendents had unusually long necks, therefore they were able to get to treetops that other creatures couldn't. They found their niche, exploited it, and continued to reproduce into the forms you see today, just as the salt-water crocodile, the fresh-water shark, and others have done. The fact that you see them looking as they do today doesn't mean they aren't still evolving. Basically, isolation plus time equals new species.

Answer 4

There are two reasons for that:
1) It wasn't their original habitat (the predecessors of horses lived in woods and thy were the size of a fox, when they moved to the planes they had to grow to be able to protect themselves from predators)
2) There are small bushes in the safari that might have been their original food, but when they found out that tree buries are tastier they overworked their necks to reach them, therefore the necks grew.
It's easy to give god the credit for everything we don't understand, but if we think enough we can find a reasonable explanation for all those questions, or at least will be as science progresses

Answer 5

The long neck was a consequence of natural selection. You start with a population of varied organisms and those who have a phenotype which is most conducive to survival (that is the ability to live to reproduce the most offspring) will become the most represented variation in the population. Therefore, the giraffes with the longer necks were able to live longer (most likely because of the ability to reach food resources) and reproduce.

To put natural selection in a real world, observed scenario, a recent paper by Rosemary and Peter Grant studying Galapagos finches shows the change in beak size because of competition for resources:

"...a Darwin's finch species (Geospiza fortis) on an undisturbed Galapagos island diverged in beak size from a competitor species (G. magnirostris) 22 years after the competitor's arrival, when they jointly and severely depleted the food supply.

Overall bill size rather than bill length is identified as the most important factor distinguishing survivors from nonsurvivors in each year."

Source - Grant, P. and Grant, R. (2006). Evolution of Character Displacement in Darwin's Finches. Science, 313, 224-226.

Their primary food source are particular seeds. Those finches with the large enough beak to open the seeds would definitely have an advantage over those who do not have beaks large enough to break the seeds. The primary food source became small and drove the competition to an accelerated rate.

Another example of how natural selection works from my site:

"Another example of selection from the real world would be that of snail shells in the genus Cepaea. The shells show up with several different colors in one species and this has been a trait for over 10,000 years which is found in the fossil record. Curtis and Barnes tell the snail's tale:

"Studies among English colonies of Cepaea have revealed some of the selective forces at work on the snails, which occupy a variety of habitats. The snails are preyed upon by birds, among which are song thrushes. Song thrushes select snails from the colonies and take them to nearby rocks, where they break them open, eat the soft parts, and leave the shells.

In habitats, such as bogs, where the background is fairly uniform, unbanded snails blend in and are less likely to be preyed upon than banded ones. Conversely, in habitats, such as woodlands, where the backgrounds are mottled, unbanded snails are more likely to be victims. (336)"

Source - Curtis, H. and Barnes, N. (1994). Invitation to Biology. (5th ed.). New York: Worth Publishers.

The snail example also can show that, contrary to what some people espouse, there can be more than one selective pressure working on a trait of an organism:

"Experiments have shown, for instance, that unbanded snails (especially yellow ones) are more heat-resistant and cold-resistant than banded snails. In other words, several different selection pressures are at work, and they appear to maintain the genetic variations of color and banding. (336)"

Source - Ibid

Hope that gives you a better idea of how natural selection works.

Answer 6

first off you don't have to be atheist to accept evolution, and the giraffes would not starve there are lower trees that the giraffe could reach and as the trees grow tall the neck on the giraffe grow longer.

Answer 7

Is it not possible that the plant life also evolved and grew taller?

Or is it not possible that they survived on grass or other shrubs?

Or maybe at some point they were carnivores?

No it would not be more logical to say god made it that way.

Think outside the box for once. Think without having a narrow-minded view locked in.

Answer 8

I think a part who starved died. And those with longer necks survived. I have not seen this process, but I imagine that a person develops differently if survival dictates him/her to become a sumo wrestling sportsman, a ballet dancer, a chess specialist, a model...

I think leaves, which grew higher, had better flavour. And giraffes were gourmands.

Answer 9

poor Kenny's logic has more holes than swiss cheese.

If they were thriving on grass and other low lying vegetation, then the long neck wouldn't have been necessary.

AZAZAEL We're not saying God made their neck long out of necessity, you're saying evolution did. God make their neck long because that's how he designed them!

Answer 10

Environment plays a much larger role in evolution than logic.
consider the mudskipper for example.
Or the tri-ops. Or the horseshoe crab. Ect...
Nature is loaded with examples of animals that don't make sense but exist very well in the environment they have adapted to.

Answer 11

Easier, yes, logical, no. And they did not starve because they can subside on grass and leaves from shorter trees. Next ridiculous god question....