2007-02-09 09:27:43 · 25 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Good question...but this is not the only 'gap" in the theory of evolution. There are just too many life forms existing for it all to be "explained" this way.
What about insects... for example.
2007-02-09 10:02:00 · answer #1 · answered by thetaalways 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
The theory of evolution does not say that distinctions between species is easy. It is really a question of definition. The word, plant, and the word, animal, have certain definitions and to us it is obvious that a rose is a plant and a dog is an animal.
Under seas, for example, there are species that are more or less between plants and animals, so scientists may disagree it they are plants and animals.
I am a religious person but I don't think this is a question of religion. I should add that God created a huge variety of plants, animals, minerals, etc. which is a part of the glory of creation. Leave the classifications to scientists since that is what they do for a living.
So the answer is that there is no perfect split: it is more a question of classification and definition.
2007-02-09 17:33:21 · answer #2 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Very early. It isn't difficult to imagine if you study protists living today. There are many which exhibit characteristics of both plants and animals. Englena is a common form which has chloroplasts and carries on photosynthesis, but also swims around like an animal. There are others which look very similar to Euglena, but without chloroplasts. And still others which look very similar to Euglena but without a flagellum and therefore the ability to swim. There are some forms which live photosynthetically like plants when light is available, but can switch over to feeding on organic debris as simple animal do, when light is not available.
What many people don't realize when asking such questions is that many or all of the steps necessary for evolution from simpler forms to more complex forms can be observed today. For example they will say "the eye is very complex, and all the parts need one another. How could something have a partial eye?". Yet you only need to look at the animal kingdom today and you see every stage in the development of the complex eye, starting with simple light-sensitive pigment spots, to simple structural eyes with no lens or retina, to simple retinal tissues without a lens, to simple eyes with a primitive lens and retina but no well developed optic nerve, to eyes with all these structures but no means of focusing, etc., etc. None of these structures is "incomplete". Each serves the needs of the organism that has it, fully and completely.
2007-02-09 17:34:42 · answer #3 · answered by PaulCyp 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Protists, single celled eukaryotes, are only loosely classified into protozoa and algae if they are distinctly animal or plantlike. In truth, there is overlap. Some varieties have both mitochondria and chloroplasts.
Protists appeared 1.8 billion years ago. Fossil multicellular plants from 1.2 billion years ago are known. The first multi-celled animals appeared 630 million years ago. The actual separation appeared somewhere in that range of slightly over a billion years, but probably in the first half.
2007-02-09 21:10:24 · answer #4 · answered by novangelis 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
First you would have to define what you call a plant and what you call an animal. Even then, times can only be approximated. What appear to be animals had already arisen by the later Ediacaran Period, about 580 million years ago. However, these creatures are soft bodied and the record of them is limited.
2007-02-09 17:34:10 · answer #5 · answered by Dave P 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I do not know about evolution, it came 1859 to be in school after my time, and the 1611
bible came to me in 1963.
In this oldest material, plant life came first by thousands of years of times and seasons which is what mankind goes by, but the time called day or days is really a time that is different as in ages that if all days are one it could be thousands added to billions that had been already, the bible does not give the age of the earth.
2007-02-09 17:37:06 · answer #6 · answered by jeni 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
There is a biology section on Y! Answers, but I will attempt to answer your question nonetheless.
From my understanding of the Wikipedia article "Timeline of Human Evolution", it was around 500-600 mya.
2007-02-09 17:32:46 · answer #7 · answered by Nowhere Man 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If the theory of evolution is correct.. why then has no one restarted the earth over... after all look how terrible it is... come one men.. squeeze those little atoms and start the world over. I challenge any man to do this... you would be a hero for sure...
2007-02-09 17:37:50 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is fundamentally little difference between animal & plant cells; in fact, there are many single-celled organisms that defy logical characterization.
Do your homework. Do you sincerely believe that God is smart enough to have made you, but too dumb to have engineered the evolutionary process?
2007-02-09 17:34:45 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Oh about Day 3 and Days 5&6 of CREATION.
DAY 3
God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it...." (Genesis 1:9-13)
DAY 5
God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky......"(Genesis 1:20-23)
DAY 6
God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, wild animals,....." (Genesis 1:24-25)
2007-02-09 17:38:01 · answer #10 · answered by Krazy K 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋