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I am just curious. I happen NOT to believe in evolution. For me, it takes a great deal more faith to believe that jellyfish evolved into humans than for a creator to make everything intelligently. I would like to hear everyone's opinion.

2006-12-25 12:25:50 · 18 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics Earth Sciences & Geology

When i say that humans evolved from jellyfish i am saying exactly what the evolutions believe. They say that life began. First there were one-celled organisms which evolved into organisms which had no spines (jellyfish) which then evolved into regular fish which then evolved into land animals and every other thing you can imagine. So I am not ignorant in the theory of evolution.

2006-12-25 12:41:56 · update #1

OK. So what you people are saying is that there is significant evidence for the theory of evolution. Where is it? For an animal to evolve into another type of creature would take gene mutations. Most gene mutations we see today are crippling to those they affect whether by disease or bone structure. For animals to evolve would take GOOD mutations, and MANY good mutations. It is highly unlikely that this would ever happen often enough even throughout billions of years for all the species we see today to exist by evolution.

2006-12-25 12:48:27 · update #2

18 answers

Of course I believe in evolution. It is a proven fact. Whether you or I believe in it or not won't change the facts.

To say that jellyfish evolved into humans is very much an oversimplification, but it's still a pretty accurate description of what happened. Starting from the time the first chemical capable of self-replication formed in the ocean, life has had two important qualities that make evolution possible: the ability to reproduce, and the ability to adapt to its environment.

The ability to adapt may come either directly from random genetic mutations, directly changing the form of the organism, or indirectly, when it changes the organism into a form with is more flexible or adaptible to different environments. Since environments are constantly changing, adaptibility is a crucial quality for life.

The ability to reproduce makes it possible for life to continue, and preserve itself over time. Life collectively is very tenacious simply because there are so many organisms trying to survive and reproduce, but each individual organism is quite fragile. Many live out their lives and die without reproducing. Many, many more die violent deaths or starve or otherwise die because they were inadequately adapted to their environment. For every successful organism, there may be a thousand or a million failures.

Humans, like every other animal, evolved through this same process. The best adapted species in the past survived and reproduced, accumulating random genetic mutations along the way which turned a small scion of some species, eventually, into entirely new species, which sometimes coexisted with (and sometimes replaced) the old. The less than best-adapted species were eaten or out-competed by the more fit, and eventually died off, never to be seen again.

All humans are probably descended from just one tribe of ancient apes. Other apes remained apes, their evolution simply changing them to a different form of ape. Only a few animals, such as sharks, cockroaches, crocodiles, and dragonflies, are so well adapted to so many environments that their evolution has essentially ceased.

The unpleasant truth of the matter is that the human race, with all its civilization and technology, is sitting on top of a three-billion-year-old pile of death, and will one day be part of it. All the faith in the world isn't going to change that.

2006-12-25 15:05:50 · answer #1 · answered by Rochester 4 · 4 1

impossible to have good genetic mutations even over billions of years?
It's even impossible to throw 6 with a dice 10 times in a row!
Or is it?
The chances for that are 1/6 to the power of 10.
1 in 60,466,176.
The chances to win the lottry of 5 numbers out of 90:
about 42,000,000
The population of my country is 10,000,000 and people do win the lottery every now and then every year.
Bacterias multiply every second.
Do you think that billions of years would not be enough to make such prize winning miracles now and then?
And where are the bad mutations you may ask?
Well if they were bad then they were outpaced by the good ones, survival of the fittest.
And where do all the races come from?
Were we already created different colors,
Then how can we be one species?What is species then anyway if there is no evolution?
Why do pharmacy companies need to develop new antibiotics for new antibiotic-resistant mutations of bacteria?
Could it be because good mutation does exist at least from the bacteria's point of view?
Of course mammals for example need more than a second to make offsprings but can you imagine how long a billion years is?
And why could evolving from jellyfish not be intelligent if it follows the laws of nature?Where do you think those laws came from maybe the Creator did have some say in the creation didn't he?

2006-12-25 22:39:35 · answer #2 · answered by amateurgrower 3 · 2 1

Every fossil, every observation in biology points to evolution. There is nothing that goes against it or points to a different way to scientifically explain modern diversity. There is not one fossil or one piece of DNA that does NOT point to evolution. It would be hard NOT to see the concrete evidence, and only those blinded by faith can do this.

Evolution is 100% world-wide accepted fact, including the evolution of man.

There is ZERO evidence for a higher being causing anything. This is why people who are religious need faith, you can't see or study the actions of a deity, by definition. Evolution has ZERO faith and ALL evidence.

Scientists (real ones) have been studying and supporting evolution for over 150 years, and still nothing has pointed to creationism. There is clear links and transitional forms between everything in the fossil record to the Class-Family level, if not Genus-Species level. And this includes humans, which there are several 'missing links' which are well described and studied, people just choose to ignore this. Sure, there are still things we don't know, but that's why science is not stagnent and dead. We learn more every day, that's what happens when you keep an open mind and follow the scientific method.

There are some areas of evolution in which all of the pieces have not been found in the fossil record, but there is no counter theory that has even ONE piece of evidence that can not easily be explained by evolution.

Let me turn the question around, if Creationism was correct and science could definitively prove Creationism (and thus the existence of God), why would they not? That would be the greatest scientific discovery in the history of the world. No one would pass that up to maintain the 'status quo'. There is no conspiracy to hide creation evidence. Anyone who knows real scientists knows they are glory-mongers first. They love to prove others wrong to enhance their own standing. And if any scientist could prove Creation/God, it would've been done a long time ago.

Go to a museum, take a class in biology, go to reputable sites on the Internet (like AAAS: http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/evolution or http://www.talkorigins.org ) and find out for yourself.

2006-12-25 21:12:25 · answer #3 · answered by QFL 24-7 6 · 2 1

Should I make fun of you, inform you, insult you, or ignore you.

Well, #3 is out because I don't that to anyone.

Since I am answering this, I guess #4 is out also.

I'll stick with #s 1 & 2.

I am tired of telling you people who never bother to check their statements against the very thing they are trying to disprove that unless you get your facts straight (what the theory of evolution actually says). No one said that man evolved from a jellyfish, just as no one said man evolved from a monkey or an ape.

What it does say is that all of these creatures had a common ancestor. The process of evolution is an ongoing process. New diseases are cropping up all the time. Where did all the new a different strains of the flu come from, or how about AIDS or the Ebola virus.

Virus' and germs evolve (mutate) faster than more advance creatures because while a generation of man is about 30 years or so, a generation for a virus may be minutes or hours.

Let's look a bit closer at this.

A new antibiotic is developed to fight off an illness. Sure enough, it kills off 999,999 of 1,000,000 germs. Ahhhh, but that one that lived, let's look at it. It is resistant to the medicine and soon it splits into two, and these two are also resistant, and they split and so on and so on. Soon we have a new, resistant strain of that disease. In other words it evolved by the rule "only the strong survive" (or is that a song?).

Now, in man (or elephants, or kangaroos, or whatever) it take years for new generations to come about, so a change is not at noticeable as in lower life forms, however, if you track the average height of man for the past thousand years or so, you will see that he is getting taller, and if you track his lifespan, you will see that he is living longer (a lot of that is because of medical science, but not all of it, the trend was around while we were still bleeding people to make them well).

Of course, you believe your "creator" should strike me down for defending hearsay, however, as you may have figured out, I believe in a different God then you do.

I believe in a God, who with his infinite wisdom, kindness and love for all his creations might just reach down from heaven and say "Let that one germ survive.".

PS: I have decided not to make fun of you, you are doing that just fine all by yourself.

2006-12-25 21:21:04 · answer #4 · answered by Walking Man 6 · 3 0

The evidence is in the fossil records, billions of years of them. Science does not have jellyfish evolving directly into humans, jellyfish are an offshoot of some other sea animal that led to something that led to something.....that led to humans. Keep in mind also that some feel evolution is the method by which god created man.

2006-12-25 21:22:08 · answer #5 · answered by ZeedoT 3 · 1 0

Do you have a concept of how long 3 billion years is?

And, your understanding of evolution is about the same as mine of Christianity if I were to say it is "some guy got hung on a pole". It is not possible to put a realistic explanation for anything as complex as evolution in a short answer. If you want to understand evolution I suggest you read something that is not a religious tract, such as Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins ( http://www.amazon.com/Climbing-Mount-Improbable-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0393316823 )

Believe in what you want, it is all the same to me. But don't let the limits in your understanding influence public policy.

Have you ever considered that perhaps God might use evolution as a process? Or is He not capable of making a man out of a jellyfish?

------
Edit: In your favor, Original Me, judging from the answers here many of those who believe in evolution have no more understanding or appreciation of it than you do.

2006-12-25 20:54:44 · answer #6 · answered by sofarsogood 5 · 1 0

I believe in evolution, and this is why. Just look at all the different types of dog breeds there are. All these breeds have been bred to accomplish specific tasks. While humans have decided what these tasks would be, ANY environmental pressure to bring about certain traits would also be expected. So selective breeding is no different than natural selection, except where the pressure to make changes in a species is coming from. Selective breeding is a form of manipulated evolution. We have witnessed this form of evolution for thousands of years -- in numerous domesticated species. Why would natural selection not favor its own changes in species? Given enough time and generations, should a species eventually evolve into new species? The answer is yes. I cannot see what would stop this type of progression from continuing through eons of time.

2006-12-25 20:46:34 · answer #7 · answered by gregory_s19 3 · 4 1

Ok, let me explain how evolution works in very simple terms:
The first day there are 10 giraffes, only 5 giraffes have long necks and can reach the leaves on the trees to eat so the other 5 die. The 5 that lived reproduce and have long necked baby giraffes. So now theres 10 long necked giraffes. But guess what, the trees that were short all got eaten so now theres only tall trees and in the new generation of giraffes only the tallest of those giraffes live. This is the basic idea of how evolution works. Its not some miraculous genetic mutation that just happens out of the blue, it's ideal genes outsurviving undesirable genes. Survival of the fittest if you will. When you reproduce your offspring are similar to you and therefor inherit your genes that allowed you to survive. People with genes that can't survive dont reproduce and their genes leave the gene pool as well. Thats evolution in a nutshell. As our environment changes so do living things, they either die out or only those with good genes survive and reproduce. Example of this, the Indians died out because theyre immune systems weren't as developed as the Europeans and now the only ones that are left are the ones that had stronger immune systems, it doesn't have to be a physical change such as long necks. Most of our athletes in America are black because only the strongest of black people survived the rough life of slavery. If you don't believe in evolution, how did we get black people and Asian people from Adam and Eve? How does a disease(which is a living thing) like AIDS now exist when it didn't exist 30 years ago? did God create AIDS? I don't think so.

2006-12-25 23:46:44 · answer #8 · answered by Eric G 2 · 2 2

Truth is not a matter of opinion. If you have the idea that truth depends on faith, that if you believe it "hard enough" it will be so, then you're mistaken. Your beliefs should conform to what the best evidence says the truth is. If you try to do the opposite, namely try to make it appear that the evidence supports your beliefs, then you have lost the connection between belief and truth, and what you believe is much less likely to be true.

As far as I know, evolution doesn't say that humans evolved from jellyfish. You only tossed that assertion in your text to make ridicule of the theory of evolution, which you have not studied and, hence, do not understand. You are mocking evolution BECAUSE you don't understand it.

Living things are always evolving, but the rate is slow, and a human lifespan is not long enough to measure any remarkable changes. But if you keep your eyes open and your mind honest, you can find evidence that remarkable evolutionary changes have happened to living things over millions of years.

Faith, properly employed, does not decide things in grand sweeps. It's proper role in reason is a minor role, such as making an assumption of continuity or linearity across a gap in one's data... unless or until such time as evidence for some different assumption comes to light. Anyone who uses faith to determine the whole nature of physical reality, as religious people often do, is making a very bad metaphysical error.

2006-12-25 20:37:54 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 6 3

I look at the physical evidence, the fossil record and the similarities between organisms. The physical evidence proves to me that live evolved from simpler forms. The physical evidence is the facts. The truth cannot be at odds with the facts. I can only conclude that evolution is the chosen means of creation.

2006-12-25 20:32:31 · answer #10 · answered by PoppaJ 5 · 3 1

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