A question for the atheists and the agnostics or firm believers in evolution?

Question

if you believe in evolution, how was life made on earth? and dont say it all started from a volcano (volcano's cause devesation), dont say it came from bacteria, because where would the bacteria come from.

all i got was a bunch of scientific theories. there is a reason why they are theories, they have no proof. Personally i would rather believe in christanity than a transparent scientific theory.

Answer 1

First off, let me clear a lot of the misconceptions your question has.

The only belief Atheism holds is that there is no God. That is it. There is no other way to define an Atheist.

Evolution is not a belief. Evolution is a scientific theory. The important difference between this is that theories are supported by evidence, while beliefs are not.

Most Atheists support evolution because most Atheists rely on evidence instead of beliefs. This does not imply that atheism and evolution are related.

Evolution is supported by evidence from many fields of science. Evolution is not debated within the scientific community.

Evolution is merely biological descent with modification. That is all. It is a common rhetorical tactic for Creationists to lump many different scientific theories together under the hood of 'evolution', but this is derogatory and ignorant.

Secondly, the process you are referring to is abiogenesis, and scientists have, replicating the conditions on earth, shown in a laboratory how simple self-replicating proteins can form. The prevailing theory is that of spontaneous generation, and there is some evidence to support it, but no fossil record. Read up.

Please at least read the abiogenesis link, if not the others. There is a lot of referenced information within.

In response to your additional details: a scientific theory is different from a normal theory. A scientific theory is based upon evidence and attempts to describe the mechanism that explains that evidence, and is subject to scientific skepticism and scrutiny.

I would like to point out to you that gravity is still just a theory.

There is a vast amount of evidence of gravity; there is also a vast amount of evidence of evolution. Read the third link under my evolution links, because I think you missed it the first time.

Answer 2

Actually, this is an experiment done over and over again in labs. It wasn't a volcano.

It was lightning.

After Earth's atmosphere was formed from millions of years of collecting chemicals and dust from projectiles plummeting from space that were drawn to our gravitational pull, the next logical formation would be water, which stayed in the atmosphere due to extreme temperatures. Due to an equally extreme amount of hydrogen and oxygen (among other things) in the newly formed atmosphere, there were a lot of storms. Friction from the forming atmosphere would charge the water and the air, which would oppose each other and thus, spark lightning. You now have an energy source and building blocks. When the temperature became cool enough for water to exist in a liquid state, it settled. Water combined with other chemicals in the air, and was fused with them through lightning. These chemicals combined and released to form all sorts of other chemicals- some of them able to absorb other chemicals and multiply on their own. As temperatures changed, and water conditions varied, these chemicals combined with other chemicals, and eventually took on a new trait- the ability to respond to stimuli. This was now a very simple life form which really just ate, reproduced, and died- but it reproduced at an alarming rate. As the new life forms reproduced and were moved along by the water, certain traits became necessary for the life forms to continue reproducing. Those that were in colder water, survived because the survivors of the cold water that came before them contributed to the gene pool, while those that couldn't handle it- didn't. Those contributing passed on their ability to survive the cold. In warm water, the changes were the opposite. Considering that temperature was only one factor in survival (can't forget light, the presence of oxygen or nitrogen, the motion of water, etc.). All of these adaptations were formed through the basic idea of survival of the fittest (and at its most basic at that!). As adaptations were made and phased out while life changed, organisms became more and more complex.
The story goes on and on until we eventually end up here- wondering why it all got started.

Understand this: This does not go to discredit religion, but this IS how it happened (although it was a lot more complicated than my quick summary). The only thing that coins evolution a theory is the fact that nobody was there to document it. The "initial spark" can be recreated in a lab sucessfully. This has nothing to do with WHY we are here, however- this could just be how your god worked- perhaps this is a glimpse into it's toolbox.

Bottoms up!

Answer 3

Actually, imagine an ocean. An ocean full of simple chemicals, some of which come from hydrothermal vents or hitch a ride to Earth on comets. Add energy to the system in the form of sunlight, cosmic rays, lightning and weather. Stir gently. Imagine the enormous numbers of such molecules in the ocean. Imagine that number of molecules going through various random permutations for a few million years. Eventually most of the combinations of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon will have been tried. One of those possible combinations turns out to to be a very, very primitive bacterium, that evolved into all other life.

And who told you volcanoes were critical? You have been reading the creationist version of the scientific version of abiogenesis, haven't you? Read real science and don't trust the church to get modern science right. Granted, now that I think about it some of the simplest chemicals might have come out of a volcano and landed somewhere else, and the heat could have driven a few of the reactions but they may or may not have been that important.

Answer 4

A question for you, Where does God come from and why do you believe he is the creator? The idea existed long before you were born and it seems to me you just hopped on the band wagon. Why do you believe in that religion when there are many religions with different creation theories. I guess you believe your right with out a doubt ignoring other religions and the fact thay may also be true.
Well anyways, I think life was always here and was not created out of nothing!

Answer 5

Before there was life, there was the "primordial soup" In half a billion years or so, one molecule, probably a random string of RNA and amino acids, gained the ability to catalyze the formation of more molecules. One of these molecules gained the ability to replicate rather than just synthesized. These molecules began replicating in the primordial soup, and somewhere along the line, the replication became good enough and the ability to scavenge other molecules became such that it would qualify as life.

Of course, this is an untestable hypothesis unless some prelife sequestrum of the primordial soup can be isolated and studied. One life arose, it propagated, consuming the primordial soup, erasing its history, and preventing life from arising again.

Answer 6

Here's one for you. Where did god get his powers? Don't say that he just has them. And don't say that he is so powerful that he gave them to himself. And don't say midichlorians because where did they come from (and also he is not a jedi).

I do not know the answer you are looking for. I am not certain it has been discovered. I am sure there are ideas about it. However, just because we cannot answer everything does not mean that all of the fossil, genetic, and geolocial evidence should be ignored. All of the scientific evidence indicates that life on this planet is the product of millions of years of evolution.

Also volcano's cause devestation, but they can also build. Ever heard of the Hawaiin Islands? (Or Anak Krakatau if you want something witnessed by man)

Answer 7

Okay, one more time. This has nothing to do with evolution. The theory that covers this is abiogenesis.

Now as far as that goes it has far less evidence than evolution. It is believed however that electricity from lightning was the main catalyst for recombination of atoms making more and more complex molecules. Eventually self-replicating molecules (early RNA or DNA) would have formed. This self-replicating molecule, which would have been much simpler than modern bacteria would be the first life.

Answer 8

I have been studying Science for the last 10 years
and as for the Theory of Evolution, it is Just that a Theory.
it is basiically like trying to guess what a picture is by only looking at less than one percent of the whole picture.
There are millions of species alive today, and many more species have gone extinct over the history of this planet. also out of the billions of single life forms that have lived on this planet very few Fossils have actually been discovered.(this is the <1%)
these fossils that have been discovered have been used to map out a Theory of Evolution composed of Plateus (rungs of a ladder or steps on a staircase, but with nothing connecting the steps or rungs together) of species. but there are no fossils that have been found that are between these Plateus. for the Theory to ever become a Fact what is reqired is to find fossils that clearly show the change of one species into another (rope, rope-ladder(rungs), or chain of fossil evidence, when graphed will show a slope with horizontal flat sections) or for some currently living animal to give birth to something that is unable to reproduce with the Mother species but is able to reproduce with one that is identical to it.

An Evolutionary-Mutation would be fertile,but would have a completely different Genome from the Parent Species, unlike a normal mutation which damages the genetic code leaving the child infertile or with severe birth defects that ussually end in death, example is a mule which is the cross between a donkey and a horse. though it is similar to the parent species it is unable to reproduce with either species or with other crosses. it is there fore infertile and there for it is a mutation and is not considered a new species.

Many people have tried to claim that the Finches of Galapagos Island and other areas of the world are able to evolve. this is not the case all it is is a case of special specialization. it is simply a case of rececive genes taking dominance through variences in food availability. (the differences noticed in the Finches have been beak sizes and shapes).

As food availability changes the finches that have the genes which will enable them to make the best use of the available foods will gain dominance over those finches whose beak genes are specialized toward the food that is out of season or no longer available. there fore the average shape of the beaks will change over time in acordance to what food is readily available.

The finches have not changed species thay have just become specialized within their species. this can also cause some Genes to become extinct within a Species or Race. this is why "Race" could even be concidered to exist. Can make the Species Stronger or weaker based on what genes are lost over time.

On the other hand if the finches were no longer able to reproduce with the parent species but were only able to reproduce with other finches with the same beak size and shape then that Would mean that they had undergone Evolutionary-Mutation.
But this could only be tested in a Labratory under Precice Conditions.

Answer 9

We don't know, plain and simple. There have been amino acids found in space.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2558

These acids could have come to earth, they might not have, we just don't know.

That said, if you had asked the whole world 300 years ago what causes infection, nobody would have known.. Do you think it would have been a good idea at that time for all the researchers to stop searching for the cause (bacteria)? Maybe they should have stuck with the bible?

Answer 10

go outside on a clear night and look up into the sky. all around and between the stars are large clouds of gas and dust. a large component of these clouds are complex organic molecules. the basis of life was around a long time before the earth formed. when the earth formed it was rich in these molecules. given time and the right conditions organic molecules formed that could act as templates, by that i mean that the way the molecule was arranged meant that any other bonding it did produced a replica of itself. that was probably the very beginning of life on earth. it's basic chemistry and physics. once a self replicating molecule came into being it would take over its whole environment, and any change in the molecular arrangement of a replicating molecule that gave it an advantage would lead to that molecule dominating and so on until RNA and DNA came into being surrounded by protective proteins that prevented them from being incorporated into ant other replicator. voila! you have the beginning of cell based life. not a miracle, not a mystery, just a natural process inherent in our universe.