Does anyone else notice the flaw?

Question

jane j-
"Things only evolve if they NEED to evolve in order to fit and if they succeed, they keep evolving with their changing environment."

The problem I see is that it suggest that evolution its self is thinking,is deciding,is somehow alive.Evolution is just a descriptive word,but in no way shape or form is alive or able to take action.
If life could decide when it's time to evolve;why arnt we still evolving?Why dont we just decide we wanna evolve into superhumans?
The answer to this to me is cuase we(life)are not in control of changing and deciding when an alteration will be made to our bodies;only someone with a mind greater than our and greater thought process can make theese decisions.Evolution is not alive,not living,not in any way thinking.But God is,God is alive,God is thinking,God is more than capable of making decisions and deciding when a change or alteration will be made.

Does anyone else see this problem wih evolution?Or am I on an island by myself?

Answer 1

Maurice H, I LOVE the way you described it!! I'll have to use that in a lesson at church or when I'm out ministering to others. Good point!!!

Answer 2

You should really learn basic evolutionary theory before you ask such questions that demonstrate your ignorance on the subject.

> Why aren't we still evolving ??
No question demonstrates a misunderstanding of evolution more than this one. Evolution is an extremely slow process that you can't notice significant changes in recordable history. Modern humans have only been around for a handful of thousands of years. Evolution takes Hundreds of Thousands, perhaps even Millions of years for significant changes to occur! Please get a grasp of the number of years that evolution has been taking place. BILLIONS. You're not going to wake up tomorrow morning with a third arm lol. That would easily take MILLIONS of years, even in the hypothetical case that a 3rd arm would be beneficial to survivability of humans, which I'm sure it is not.

And species evolve in order to survive. It's called Survival of the Fittest. If a species is dying out, then only the strongest specimens of that species survive, and they reproduce, and their genes are passed on. The STRONGEST of the bunch pass on their genes, whatever made them the strongest. Maybe they were a little faster than the others. At some point in history, it became beneficial for 4 legged animals to be able to stand on two feet, perhaps to reach those higher berries. The ones that couldn't do this died out. Hence an evolutionary trend started for 2 legged animals with "arms", ie monkeys and apes. Again, the changes taking place here happen extremely slow. You obviously don't have a grasp of the incredible time involved here, billions of years.

Answer 3

You are with a lot of people who have some very serious questions about evolution and other scientific thought. The following website has helped me a lot: answersingenesis.org. They will show how some fields of study within the science community don't always share the same conclusions and give you good information on asking the right kinds of questions. There is a story I heard once about a bank that hired an expert to instruct his tellers how to tell a counterfeit bill from a real one. They expected him to bring in all kinds of fake bills and show them all the different things to look for. Instead he brought out real currency and showed them all the things that made the bills genuine. By showing them what was true they could spot a fake one quite easily. Know what God has to say about Himself, His creation, His purpose for you. Read His Word and let Him teach you what is genuine. You'll never be on an island by yourself.

Answer 4

So, uh, you're saying that if we aren't DECIDING to evolve, then it means it must be a conscious force? Do you by any chance know what the "fallacy of false alternatives" is? It's when you try to make a case by artificially restricting the possible solutions to a quandary. To use a pretty obtuse example, I could say "Either my skin is purple, or I have the highest I.Q. in the country. My skin is not purple, therefore I have the highest I.Q. in the country." That's your basic argument here.
Evolution is more like mathematics; it's a simple fact of the mechanics of existence. The tendency for things, not just organisms, to evolve is innate because it's a basic part of how things work. Things that are set up to persist will persist. Things that are not set up to persist will cease to exist. Therefore, only things that can persist will exist. And evolution is nothing more than this natural tendency in action.

Here's a hint for future reference: Study and read about a topic BEFORE trying to formulate theories on it.

Answer 5

Evolution, in theory, is not a chioce or instant process as you suggest. ie "Why dont we just decide we wanna evolve into superhumans?" The process takes place over millions of years and besides, humans have evolved. Northern people have a higher resilience to cold than southerners. Just not on the scale of a physical change that is obvious ie fins to legs.
In light of that, despite our science, humans go back less than 100,000 years and we have obviously changed since the Neanderthall. God's time is not ours and he/she/it may very well decide the course of change, but once again, on a much larger scale than we as a species, heve existed.
Therefore, there is no problem. God thinks. Just on a much larger scale than we can undersatnd. We're just a speck on the timeline of the universe is all.

Answer 6

Here's the answer if you are really interested.

Taken as a population, a species is almost always testing the limits of its ecological niche through mutations and new combinations of established genes. For instance, female fruit flies show a mating preference for rare males. In other words, they are programmed to try something new (genetically speaking).

Now if the environment never changes and adjacent ecological niches are already filled by other species, evolution will be very slow within a species or even non existent. But as the ecological demands put on a population change over time or as new niches become available, the species will adapt to those changes.

So there is a genetic noise that is always occurring in ecological time. But over evolutionary time, that genetic noise translates into noticeable and meaningful changes.

Answer 7

You are on the island alone. Your idea of how evolution works is flawed. Evolution doesn't decide to change anything. Mutations build up, the individual organism that just happens to have a mutation that helps it to survive better than its neighbors gets to past on its mutation to its descendants. A limb, a leg, an arm, takes hundreds of mutations and millions of years to emerge. Some of the organisms are able to survive just fine without the mutations, they tend to stay very close to the original organism. The one with the mutations may be able to exploit new environments better so that it gradually, over a long long time, acquires different characteristics. But then again, why am I telling you this. You have already made up your mind to ignore all the evidence out there to maintain you lock on what you think is real.

Answer 8

Interesting. I believe man evolved, but was orginally created. God did not create us civilized as you can tell by looking at some cultures today. Hybreds occur in nature and in man. Doesn't mean God didn't create the first plant or first animal or first human.

Answer 9

Does not evolution take place when a caterpiller turns into a butterfly. Evolution simply means change whether rapin or sloww.

Man evolves when change takes place within.
Dead to sin but alive in Christ.
Jesus was GOD, became man, was fully man and GOD, died rose again, lives in Heaven and in the believers.
What greater evolution is there then that?

Answer 10

The quote is misleading. New features arise by mutation which is a somewhat random process. They are selected for if they satisfy a need.

Answer 11

Animals evolved their camouflage too... the chameleon didn't always change color to mimic their environment, but billions of years of being easy prey made them decide they needed camouflage .... errrrrr sure.. I believe that