Need help from people who believe in evolution.?

Question

I am supposed to interview people who believe in evolution for my anthropology class. So if you will, please answer the following questions for me.
1. How old are humans and what is our relationship to non-human primates?
2. What are these beliefs based on?
3. Have you ever learned about creationism? If so, when and where?

Answer 1

1.) homo-sapien-sapien have lived for 40,000 years....there were at one time 3 different species of human on the Earth together....Homo erectus, crow-magnon and Neanderthal (i may not have crow-magnon right...id have to look it up...sorry) eventually homo erectus and Neanderthal died out...maybe they didnt survive because their adaptation skills werent as developed as Crow-Magnon...i THINK (again i may have this name wrong) that homo-sapiens developed from crow magnon and homo-sapien-sapien are derived from them.....I feel our relationship to non-human primates MAY be that we share some common ancestry like lions and house cats share a common ancestry.
2.) I learned this in college
3.) I dont come from a religious family so all i know of creationism came from reading about the Scopes'monkey trial' and Ned Flanders on the Simpsons!

Answer 2

I do not " believe " in evolution, but, as a evolutionary biologist have added to the ever growing pile of evidence that supports evolutionary theory; both evolution and speciation. Your questions.

1. Modern humans are about 100,000 to 200,000 years old. Our relationship to non-human primates is very close, as we are apes. The common ancestor of all humans and apes, plus monkeys existed about 4 to 6 mya. We have split off from the chimpanzees and other apes much more recently; perhaps only 2 mya.

2. My " beliefs " are based on the scientific evidence that comes from many disciplines, over many years and has been supported very well in a empirical fashion.

3 Yes, at this site. Where you will learn the creationist arguments, along with the ID argument and see how they are easily refuted.

http://www.talkorigins.org

Answer 3

Humans as old as maybe more then 75,000 years old.... the relationship between non-human primates are ok.... some primates are doing ok in the wild or in the Zoo... the belief has been there ever since we saw things in the sky and been able to walk up right, the beliefs a the most powerful thing in the human body as well as the human brain.... now Creationism to me sounds like someone has smoked crack and just throught it up or pulled it out of the air... like come on Creationism look i can do it to Spontaneousism.... or Scientology F*@K some people must be on some good stuff to make some **** out of nothing and to make it some think from nothing...

Answer 4

1. I can't give you an exact number, because every time I read NG or watch the Discovery Channel, I find out a new set of older human remains have been found. I can picture our evolution as a tree, in which at some point, we "branched off" from another primate, as did our modern-day apes.
2. Scientific research and theory. Like I said...I read NG and watch channels like NG and Discovery.
3. That was the first theory of how humans came into existance that I heard about. I heard about creationism when I was about 6 years old and started attending a church.

Answer 5

1. I'd have to look this up....I think around 200,000 years old...Our relationship to primates is that they are some of our closest relatives. We share a common ancestor. But we also share common ancestors with plants and bacterium too. It just depends on how far back you want to go.
2. First, lets make a distinction between "beliefs" and "facts". Evolution is based on facts gathered from many different branches of science including geology, the fossil record, physics, zoology, genetics and direct observation. (We have witnessed the evolution of bacteria since the development of antibiotics. Their population has genetically changed in response to the pressure exerted on their survival by substances used to kill them aka antibiotics. Look up resistant strains.) Also facts belong to the realm called the "Natural World". These are all the things you can see, measure or directly or indirectly observe.
Beliefs however deal with the "Supernatural World", or the world above and beyond the Natural World, and are not supportable by science. I can't measure, prove or disprove the existence of God. But, I can believe in God.
3. Yes, I learned the Judeo/Christian version as a child.

Also when science uses the word "Theory" it DOES NOT mean that there is a lot of room for doubt. Quite the contrary is true. A scientific theory is well supported by many branches of science and for our purposes can be replaced by the word FACT. If you want to express a scientific idea that may or may not be true use the word HYPOTHESIS.

Answer 6

Evolution is an interesting topic, through not one I believe in.

You seem to imply it is a type of belief system, which it is. Evolution is an attempt to answer questions pertaining to religion outside of religion, and by so doing, it has created it's own form of religion.
1.) the answer to how old humans are varies based on different texts. Secondly, the evolution tree provides a glimpse at possible relations.
2.) The beliefs are based on "scientific observation." Evolution has never been witnessed first hand. Humans have not been around that long. Instead, micro-evolution has been proven, as Darwin outlined. The finches devoloped various traits based on survival of the fittest. First, it is important to note that DNA restricts unlimited mutation. Mutation requires a level of possible (even plausible, such as survival of the fittest) manipulations of DNA, otherwise there would be animals easily spanning the "missing-link" gaps existent between the species. Holes we have yet to fill.
Secondý and most importantly, these beliefs are based on the culture. Liberalism requires an autonomy of relativism. Because of this, people who do not want to see other possibilies reject them and look for means of defending mere theory, thus formulating a religion. Hence it's not scientificly empirical in the truest sense. One must simply look at the all the data. It simply does not all add up.
When someone really explains to me many of the other inherent flaws in evolution, instead of believing it simply out of the many mistakes it provides, then I will be a believer, but until then I prefer accepting what reality portrays.
3.) yes, I am a creationist.

Answer 7

1) Humans (as in homo sapiens) arose around 300,000 BCE. We are related to modern primates in that we have a common ancestor. The split between humans and primates occurred with the australopithecines, pre-human hominid ancestors. The three differentiating factors between our hominid ancestors and modern primates' ancestors are bipedalism, brain size, and the possession of a larynx. We ultimately evolved into homo sapiens from australopithecines.
2) I am familiar with the above information because we recently studied this is (public) school. I trust in evolution because I am a student of molecular biology. I've recently learned exactly how mutations occur, and it justifies evolution. Also, I'm convinced by the presence of vestigial organs in modern animals and humans. We have tailbones, whales have hand-bone structures. Why? All life shares a common ancestor
3) I learned the basic story of Biblical creation as a child in Catholic ed/Sunday school. However, Catholics do not read the Bible literally. We interpret some things as metaphors, which is my take on Genesis. My religion and my belief in evolution are compatible.

Answer 8

First of all, I'd like to note that just because I believe in evolution does not mean that I think that man evolved from apes. For now, the data suggests that we humans have been on earth for at least 4.4 million years

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do94hu.html


These beliefs are based on my general trust of the scientific method. I think it's fair and objective. Creationism is based on religious belief.

People thought the earth was flat well into the 1400's and 1500's. Why would anyone accept that these same people DEFINITELY knew the origin of mankind?

Answer 9

1)humans are approximately 0.25 million years old, although that's if you count homo sapiens sapiens as the first humans. And our relationship to non human primates is pretty close, as the DNA similarities prove.
2)biological facts, and Darwins theory (It IS still just a theory after all)
3)I was brought up in a christian family, and went to a church school, so I learnt about creationism from an early age.

-I'm a biology student, if that info helps :-)

Answer 10

1.) Age of humans current estimates put that at about, 3.9 to 3 million years ago for Australopithecus afarensis. And Anatomically modern humans appear in the fossil record in Africa about 130,000 years ago.

2.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human (also known as Science)
Fossil remains, anthropologhy, geology, Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

3.) Was raised in a fundamentalist Christian/Biblical Literalism, two parent home. (We all still love each other)

I messed-up and when to college; took Geology - physical and historical; It's all there for anyone to see. We are a long way from knowing everything, but on some things, we are pretty close to having the literal answers.