Why do evolutionists mock religions, when their religion (evolution) has less evidence?

Question

If we evolved we would have in museums bones of all these creatures between species.

There are apes on earth today, and there are humans. Why didnt any of the animals in between survive? why didnt any of them move location and therefore stop evolving and be alive today? what are the odds that every single one that started evolving ended up as a human.

How can they eye have evolved? in stages? what use would it have been?

again, we have dinosaur bones, where are the bones of these evolved creatures, there should be millions everywhere for all the millions of creatures that would have evolved.

Answer 1

I agree, evolution is nothing more than a 'theory', yet we are forced to learn it in schools, while creationism is not taught.

Answer 2

You've made several wrong presumptions, all of which really indicate that you understand neither science, nor evolution.

To make it easy for you, I'll answer your questions, but I'm going to have to ask you to crack open a history book and cite the date when science said, "we're done" and all the scientists stopped looking for more fossils. Then, I'm going to have to ask you to open a science book and start learning.

"If we evolved we would have in museums bones of all these creatures between species."

It's not like one species gave birth to another species. Change is slow and gradual. If we had complete fossils skeletons of every single creature that ever lived, then we could clearly show the slow process, with little changes between every generation; some might even say that it's arbitrary to say where one species ended and another began. But, we aren't done yet, and many bones and fossils have been destroyed by natural processes over time.

"There are apes on earth today, and there are humans. Why didnt any of the animals in between survive?"

They would've have been competing for resources in the same environment. The apes competing with the other primates would have had some sort of advantage with respect to the environment. Ditto with humans...which is the #1 cited reason behind the fall of the neanderthals.

"why didnt any of them move location and therefore stop evolving and be alive today?"

Now that's a better question...except that, if one species can move to another location, what would prevent a similar species that fulfills a similar ecological niche from moving as well? Any species will eventually run out of places that it can move to without competition.

Even if this were successful, it owuldn't actually stop the evolutionary process. Change would still occur, though some pertinent ones may become more transitory and pointless. New pressures would be applied to force other traits to be more important.

"what are the odds that every single one that started evolving ended up as a human."

I'm not sure what this question meant. Do you mean that humans are highly adaptable and can respond to most natural pressures?

"How can they eye have evolved? in stages? what use would it have been?"

If that's really not rhetorical, here you go:

The eye is a collection of photoreceptor cells; even some types of bacteria have photoreptor cites floating around. Originally, they would only have been able to sense ambient light changes (i.e., light/darkness). If the light is associated with a change in the environment (such as a sudden shadow, or a dangerous change in temperature), this would aid vastly in survival and proliferation.

A cup-shape that has more than one photoreceptor would have been greatly selected for, as it could detect direction and movement by a simple measurement of which receptor is being stimulated by a light source over time.

A thin membrane covering the photoreceptor cell(s) or cup(s) may have already existed (most bacteria with such cells tend to have the structures internalized). This would have the added benefit of filtering some harmful radiation, and would only work if the fluid in the area was already a transparent humor. The most optimal solution to this would be crystalline proteins, which are commonly found in any living cell. Apply pressure (such as any force holding the photoreceptor against the membrane), and you can split the crystalline proteins into two layers, allowing some circulating fluid to filter in, thickening in the middle, where liquid from either direction meets in equal pressure. There you have it...a biconvex shape, which any optical novice could tell you is the most ideal structure you can get for a refractive index.

And, when you have those crystalized structures, each will have changes that are selected by the environment. The outer layer (or layers, if the pressure is increased), still protected by a membrane, would be selected for hardness to reduce damage to the rest of the structure.

At this point, differences between species occur. Not all eyes between all animals are precisely the same, and it's all based on the selective pressures on each species. However, take a look at the eye of any animal based on what I said. You'll see that no common elements between all eyes is lacking. It's all there, and it all makes sense.

"again, we have dinosaur bones, where are the bones of these evolved creatures, there should be millions everywhere for all the millions of creatures that would have evolved."

Some have no doubt been destroyed by earthquakes, erosion, and volcanic activity. But most are in the ground, and we pull them up all the time.

Answer 3

* There's no such thing as 'evolutionists'. Are you a gravitationist?

* Have you ever noticed an animal dying and not being fossilized?

* Animals evolve; modern animals are not descended from other modern animals.

And as for the eye:

Claim CB301:
The eye is too complex to have evolved.
Source:
Brown, Walt, 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling evidence for creation and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, p. 7.
Hitching, Francis, 1982. The Neck of the Giraffe, New York: Meridian, pp. 66-68.
Response:

1. This is the quintessential example of the argument from incredulity. The source making the claim usually quotes Darwin saying that the evolution of the eye seems "absurd in the highest degree". However, Darwin follows that statement with a three-and-a-half-page proposal of intermediate stages through which eyes might have evolved via gradual steps (Darwin 1872).

* photosensitive cell
* aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve
* an optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells and covered by translucent skin
* pigment cells forming a small depression
* pigment cells forming a deeper depression
* the skin over the depression taking a lens shape
* muscles allowing the lens to adjust

All of these steps are known to be viable because all exist in animals living today. The increments between these steps are slight and may be broken down into even smaller increments. Natural selection should, under many circumstances, favor the increments. Since eyes do not fossilize well, we do not know that the development of the eye followed exactly that path, but we certainly cannot claim that no path exists.

Evidence for one step in the evolution of the vertebrate eye comes from comparative anatomy and genetics. The vertebrate βγ-crystallin genes, which code for several proteins crucial for the lens, are very similar to the Ciona βγ-crystallin gene. Ciona is an urochordate, a distant relative of vertebrates. Ciona's single βγ-crystallin gene is expressed in its otolith, a pigmented sister cell of the light-sensing ocellus. The origin of the lens appears to be based on co-optation of previously existing elements in a lensless system.

Nilsson and Pelger (1994) calculated that if each step were a 1 percent change, the evolution of the eye would take 1,829 steps, which could happen in 364,000 generations.

Links:
Lindsay, Don, 1998. How long would the fish eye take to evolve? http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/eye_time.html
References:

1. Darwin, C., 1872. The Origin of Species, 1st Edition. Senate, London, chpt. 6, http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin/chapter6.html
2. Nilsson, D.-E. and S. Pelger, 1994. A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Biological Sciences, 256: 53-58.

3. Shimeld, Sebastian M. et al. 2005. Urochordate βγ-crystallin and the evolutionary origin of the vertebrate eye lens. Current Biology 15: 1684-1689.

Further Reading:
Dawkins, Richard, 1996. Climbing Mount Improbable, New York: W.W. Norton, chpt. 5.

Land, M. F. and D.-E. Nilsson, 2002. Animal Eyes. Oxford University Press.

Please - the only thing you're doing is making people think all muslims are uneducated. Please, pick up a book!

Answer 4

1. If we evolved we would have in museums bones of all these creatures between species.


Your problem here is assuming that transitional species don't exist, but you are wrong. They do, and more are found every day. I recently read an article right here on Yahoo talking about how certain kinds of fish have the potential for developing legs. More bird-dinosaur connections seem to be found every month. Plenty of human ancestors have been found. We have all these transitional species *despite* how rarely fossils actually form. This tells us that there much be a lot.

We can even chart transitions on levels not involving fossils. If we look at the molecular level, we can observe gradual changing in proteins and in genes as we move around the phylogenic tree. It's pretty amazing, but everything we learn about molecular biology today supports what everyone knew about big-scale biology a hundred years ago: evolution happened.


2. Why didn't any of the animals in between survive, and why didn't they stop evolving, and why did they all evolve?


This part of your question betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about what evolution is. Evolution operates at the level of a population, not an individual member of a species. One animal does not just turn into another animal. There are occasional mutations that bring about vast changes in (relatively) short amounts of time, but the process of evolution is the process of these better suited subsets of the population gaining ground and then dominating. Fish didn't disappear because populations of them evolve into populations of amphibians, nor did human ancestors vanish when humans first appeared.

Populations *never* stop evolving. We are not the same population we were when we broke off from our common ancestor with monkeys ages ago. (Note: We did not evolve from modern monkeys. Both humans and modern monkeys are descended from a common ancestor. *Both* evolved from that, though humans did so more strikingly.) Our population continues to change, slowly but steadily.

3. How can the eye have evolved?

Easily. Subsets of a popultion with some advantage tend to dominate more quickly than you might expect, and it turns out that sensitivity to light is an *extreme* survival advantage, for reasons that ought to be obvious. That is why the eye has evolved separately *many* times. In fact, it has often evolved in better form than what we humans have, with our crazy crossed over version. There are many different kinds of eyes out there, some more developed than others, and some just light-sensitive spots.

4. Something about dinosaurs.

I'm not really sure what you're asking here. If you're wondering what creatures are descended from dinosaurs, look no further than birds. There is a mountain of evidence that dinosaurs were very bird-like, and there have even been some very, very obvious intermediaries.

(Funnily enough, though, some creationists actually respond to the transitional species by complaining that, with the "gap" plugged by a new discovery, there are now *two* gaps that need to be filled before they'll relent.)



Evolution is a fascinating subject, even for someone like me who enjoys biology more on a molecular scale. Do yourself a favor and read up on it from a reputable source (i.e. not a creationist). The most obvious free internet resource on the subject is http://www.talkorigins.net.

Answer 5

You know NOTHING about evolutionary biology. Evolution is not a religion; evolution is an established scientific theory (which by definition is a theory that has considerable evidence to support it and is widely accepted by the greater scientific community).

We did evolve, and we do have bones of intermediary species, such as Tiktaalik roseae, an important link between seafaring animals and reptiles. Also, there is Australopithecus, exemplified by 'Lucy', and you can find a fairly accurate article on human evolution at Wikipedia (Wikipedia is not an actual reliable source in all cases, but the article on human evolution has as its sources several respected journal articles.).

Today's apes and today's humans diverged from a common ancestor. We are not descendants of orangutans or gorillas; there is a common ancestor known as Sahelanthropus, whose descendants adapted to a multitude of different environments.

Look at the course of evolution of humans from fish to reptiles to therapsids to early hominids to humans. All modern eyes evolved from a proto-eye some 540 million years ago, according to Halder, G., Callaerts, P. and Gehring, W.J. (1995). "New perspectives on eye evolution." Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 5 (pp. 602–609).

Bones decompose and can also be hidden. You apparently also have no knowledge of the life cycle, either.

The scientific theory of evolution has decades of published, supported, and meticulously evaluated evidence. Creationists have nothing but a silly unscientific book that was written far before modern scientific techniques, which are the only ones that are even remotely reliably accurate, were developed.

This is part of why I have no respect for creationists.

Answer 6

Please, inform yoursel further before you criticise. Your question shows how little you know about evolution.
Here are some points of your question that just don't make sense:

1)We do have a lot of evidence for "these creatures between species."
2)Nothing stops evolving
3)If you read any modern book whose subject is evolution chances are you will find a detailed explanation on how the eye has evolved.
4)You are not very famiiar to the concept of extintion are you??

Answer 7

This question has already been answered a hundred times.

The fact: there is more evidence for evolution that there is that god exists.

The fact: There are thousands of transitional species, transitional fossils, transitional organs, and on and on.

Evolution is not a religion, it is a fact. Go to an accredited University and get a real education, not some back woods, bible thumping Christian college that teaches lies to keep you from knowing the truth.

Answer 8

There's WAY more evidence of evolution than creationism. That's just a fact. There are countless articles you can read about evolution. The only "proof" for creationism is in the Bible. Wow. Thats like saying the proof for magic is in a Harry Potter book

Answer 9

Not all "evolutionists" mock religion, there are plenty of religious scientists who respect other views, and, you might ask: Where are Adam and Eves bones?

Where are the fossilized bones of all the people who just "appeared" after being made of "red clay"?

Perhaps you should consider Evolution to be the Agent of God-you would feel better about the whole thing!

And, "religion" has only faith, where evolutionary theory has acceptance of new evidence.

/!\

Answer 10

Good questions... And why didn't the monkeys evolve? Only a few evolved? No one has ever disproved Christianity- they have disproved evolution… So why do they stick to their beliefs? The answer: They DON’T WANT TO BELIEVE THEY ARE WRONG.

Also, how did all the creatures that were evolving into birds survive? Think on it, they could not fly and they had embarrassingly small legs that they could barely use. How could they survive the predators?

Answer 11

Here's a really good link that explains evolution. Read up a bit. That's all I ask. Some of your question will be answered and you will have some new knowledge. I lot of what you seem to know is wrong. That happens because a lot of people seem to misrepresent what evolution really is.