Evolution questions?

Question

Ok, if humans came from monkeys, why didn't all the monkeys evolve? Do you believe in Evolution? If so, why did you choose to believe in evolution? Why do evolutionists believe that the earth is millions of years old? Is there anyone out there who is both a Christian and an evolutionist? If so, why do you believe what you believe? Don't feel obligated to answer all the questions, just the ones that you want to. If you do answer a question, please explain why you feel that way.

By the way, I am a Christian who believes in Creationism.

Answer 1

It's nice when the questions from creationists sound sincere. Often on Y!A, creationists will just post silly questions in order to make a statement about their religious beliefs. So thanks for asking in the spirit of some one genuinely interested in how the "other side" thinks!

That said, I'll skip the easy ones (monkeys... search talk.origins archive for this one; Earth is billions of years old... search Yahoo! for terms like radiometric dating).

"Do you believe in evolution?" - - I occasionally get this question from my students, and the question itself always needs to be clarified. My first general concern is with the word "believe," because it carries a connotation with it of opinion or a general sense of acceptance without critical appraisal. So while "believe" is the appropriate word when asking some one if they believe in God, or if they believe that Nicole Ritchie has an eating disorder (since none of us has direct info on that issue; assuming you're not her physician), it's not appropriate to a scientist when asking about evolution. Strictly speaking, a good scientist doesn't do anything other than *accept* or *reject* hypotheses of a scientific nature. So in truth, I *accept* evolution because there's literally no evidence that it might be wrong and nearly uncountable evidence that it's true. In other words, in science we don't accept anything on "faith," but rather are trained to be skeptical. We reject any hypothesis that lacks supporting evidence. For instance, there are still people who "believe" that the Earth is flat (no kidding), but the available evidence (photos from space, measurements of curvature of the surface of the Earth, etc.) suggests otherwise. So even if I'd grown up the child of a flat-earther, I'd have to reject the flat-earth hypothesis based on the lack of evidence for it and the substantial evidence for the (roughly) spherical Earth hypothesis.

"Is there anyone out there who is both a Christian and an evolutionist?" - This question makes me sad every time I hear it. First, of course there are. There are scientists who accept evolutionary theory who are also members of every major religion (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) and most of the minor ones. Some of them have even written books about their personal struggles with this issue. Many of my colleagues have strong religious faiths, though of course many do not. I'm not aware of stats on the subject, but I would be surprised if the majority didn't claim to be agnostics, followed by about a tie between atheists and people with religious convictions of some sort.

I hope you find answers to your questions that you're ultimately happy with. You should know that scientists aren't all raging atheists, and if you hear that we are... you'd do well to suspect the motivations of whomever is saying so. Me... I'm just happy whenever I see sincere questions about the relationship between science and religion. It's a truly fascinating field of research actually, and I hope will one day be more honestly engaged by our society. Good luck and happy reading!

Answer 2

"why didn't all the monkeys evolve"
Only animals that enter a new niche have selection pressures that select for a different structure. If I never leave the trees, I have no reason to adapt to life on the ground. The monkeys still evolve, they are just still what we would call monkeys afterwards.

I am absolutely 100% convinced that evolution is what created the physical form of all current life on this planet including humans.

I am a Christian and very religious because of personal experience. I know for an absolute fact that a superior being came to me and told me that my mother died on the other side of the planet. I was convinced it was God but was never actually told. I went from being an agnostic to 100% believer in a second. I see the connection to the physical world of the Earth as absolutely undeniable. We are evolved from bacteria. That is a near 100% certainty. That has absolutely nothing to do with our true nature or soul. People can be so arrogant to assume knowledge that they don't have. You will not take your body to heaven so your physical body is not what religion is all about. It is about the soul. Science and religion don't conflict at all. It is only man's arrogance that doesn't see that God has told you the answers but some will not accept it unless it fits their selfish and egocentric view.

Answer 3

Here is the deal with being a creationist and asking about evolution...you make grandiose errors in your questions that we have to spend time explaining how you have it wrong before we go any further.

Evolution is not against god (it doesn't even propose the existance or lack there of of a god). Religion is based in faith. Evolution is based in science, the focus is upon explaining the world through observations and testing theories. These two things are not mutually exclusive. The perception that evolution is against god is in the eyes of the church. If I remember correctly, in the bible, there is a verse that says something like god created the universe and set the rules for that universe that god himself must follow. If that is so, then why is it that evolution must be against god?

Now, as already said, humans and other apes come from a common ancestor. BTW, human beings ARE primates. We ARE apes. There is no getting around that. Apes have 5 digits on their hands and feet, they have nails instead of claws, they have hair not fur, they have mostly naked faces, they have binocular vision, they have dry noses that are not on snouts and reduced senses of smell, they have full shoulder movement...sounds a lot like human beings, doesn't it? Because we fit that mold.

This does not detract from the value and accomplishments we have as a species, it is merely showing our roots. We are here today because of species that came before us...and it is the height of pomposity to think that we are the final product. Just looking at the geological record shows us that most of the species that have ever existed are now extinct. This is the way of the world. Nothing is forever, it changes it adapts and sometimes it goes away all together.

The bible is not an authority on science. To give you an example, the bible says bats are birds. We know that isn't so, but to ancient hebrew people if it flew it was a bird. Another example, in the battle of Jericho, I believe, it is said that the sun stood still in the sky. Now that alone implies that the sun revolves around the earth, something we know is NOT true. So already the bible has that wrong scientifically. In order for the sun to have stood still in the sky, the earth would have had to stop revolving on its axis, something that would bring about catastrophic results on earth (gravity, for example, is based partly in the earth's rotation). With that said, I am not saying that the religions that believe in the bible are wrong, merely that the bible itself is not an authority on science.

I encourage you to do some actual learning into the theory of evolution. If you are in college, take an evolutionary biology class...see if you can audit it if you don't want it on your transcript as a course counting toward your degree.

Answer 4

I didn't choose to believe in evolution. I choose to believe that the scientific method is a valid method of learning about the world around us. It's through the scientific method that we get things like modern medicine and modern technology. To deny the scientific method would mean that, to be completely honest with myself (I'm a stickler that way), I'd have to revert to an Amish-like existence. Heck, I'd really have to go even further back, because scientists began using it in the... 17th century?

Evolution is something that we can see happening all the time. It's not under debate; the exact method by which it happens is what's under debate. It's like us knowing that gravity exists, but not yet being able to explain all aspects of it. Gravity is there; gravitational theory is what we're still working on. We can watch bacteria evolve to become unaffected by medicines that use to kill them off; you've seen the news stories about the guy with drug-resistant TB. We watch germs evolve from something safe to something deadly to humans; you've also seen the worries about the bird flu.

And humans didn't come from monkeys. Humans, the rest of the great apes, and monkeys all came from a common ancestor, which is now extinct. Our different branches didn't evolve into humans because we evolved in a special environment. We ventured into the savannah; everyone else stayed back in the forest. The other great apes hung out on the ground, while the monkeys stayed up in the trees. Rather, I should say the ancestors of all these groups. These were all different environments, in which each group faced different pressures and utilized different resouces. They would of course become different.

Please check out some good books on evolution written by evolutionary scientists. And read up on the scientific method. People really didn't just pull this out of their @sses, and it helps to understand how they came to their conclusions. At the very least, it'll help your debates; if you don't understand the science, you can't refute it.

Answer 5

In your question, I think there's a common misconception about evolution- evolution does not have a determined outcome or try to obtain one ideal ending. Why don't fish start sprouting legs? Why should they if they can survive in the water just fine? Animals with legs aren't any better than fish, they're just more suited to their particular environment. Millions of years ago, fish did eventually evolve into creatures that had legs and eventually moved onto land. But that was a completely different environment- the creatures with legs had no competition from other creatures on land because they were the first ones to colonize it. Now, however, even if a fish did by chance start to evolve legs, it would face steep competition from other land animals which have been adapting to their environment for millions of years. A fish with legs would be at a vast disadvantage compared to them. As a side note, fish with lungs have been seen. They are called lungfish.

Answer 6

Whoa! there Honey, slow down. Your spinning your wheels here. First, humans did not evolve from monkeys, far from the truth, they have a common ancestor with the Chimpanzee but, common does not mean they're related.
And the Earth is Billions of years old, in fact about fifteen billion years old.
I am a Christian and in fact getting ready to go to mass, I never miss. That does not mean I don't belive in evolution, you can't put the two together, you have to accept them and believe them, separately.
I don't know if I answered all your questions, I do have faith in people like the Leakey's of South Africa and the evolutionary leaps they're making in the evolution of humans. I also have faith in the Church and what they preach about God and my faith.
You can have both your cake and eat it too. Don't get so wound up in this, just accept it and go on.

Answer 7

I honestly don't see why Christianity has to be a mutually exclusive state to believing in evolution! Why can't both be true?
You have to understand how evolution works, which apparently so many people don't. Evolution comes about due to normal, natural genetic mutations which, if they are beneficial to the organism, get passed on in their offspring. For example, I have double-jointed fingers, they bend back further than most people's fingers. If I had kids with someone else whose fingers had a tendency to bendyness, our offspring would have more flexible fingers. Their kids would too, and their kids and so on. Over thousands of years, with people of bendy-finger persuasion interbreeding, eventually you might end up with a race of people who's fingers were freakishly bendy, and may have an advantage over other species. It wouldn't mean that there were no people left who didn't have weird fingers, but they would share a common ancestor.
I am a Christian who believes in evolution, simply because I believe in God, but have seen evidence, through the fossil record, that evolution has happened. What's so hard about believing that God created the earth and that creatures of all kinds evolved upon it, with God's help? If you take Genesis literally, the whole seven day thing, then it would be a bit hard to accept. I like to take the seven day thing with a grain of salt, that maybe a day to God is millions of years to us.

Answer 8

Great questions. I'm also a Christian and I do believe in Creation. I am trying to learn more more about the theory of evolution because I think it's interesting. As of right now it seems plausible to me. So I guess that I have not decided one way or the other (assuming they disprove each other which I'm not sure about either).

From my limited understanding, not all the monkeys evolved because different groups of monkeys lived in different places. Natural selection involves adapting to your environment. So, let's say there's a group of monkeys living in present day Russia and a group living in present day Africa. They are both the same species when they arrive to their locations, but because the environment they each live in is so vastly different the two groups will develop different characteristics to live in their own environment the best. For example (assuming the same climate conditions we have today), the group in Africa will probably end up with less body hair because it is so much warmer there. The monkeys with the gene mutation for less body hair will become more prominent and eventually take over. It's a very simplified version and you have to remember that the changes go slowly over millions of years. But like I said I'm still learning so I could be off here.

Evolutionists believe that the earth is millions (if not billions?) of years old for many reasons. For one, it takes that long for evolution to take place. Two, carbon dating I think. Three, tectonic plate movement. Many more reasons than that and I'm sure and I don't know them all.

Well, there are my thoughts.

Answer 9

Humans don't come from monkeys. Its drives me mad when I hear someone say "I didnt come from no monkey!". Our closest relatives are apes and monkeys. Apes lack tails. Chimpanzees share 99% of DNA with humans. Human can receive a blood transfusion from a chimpanzee and live. Evolution takes place over long periods of time....we cant see it in our lifetime (thats why monkeys and apes aren't "evolving"......have they? Probably....we just havent seen it). Geology has proven, without a doubt, that the world is millions of years old.

Answer 10

humans did not come from monkeys. humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor, now dead. i believe that evolution happened, is happening, and will continue to happen, just as i believe that gravity happened, is happening, and will continue to happen. they are scientific explanations of very real things. the earth is actually billions of years old, as the evidence points to. yes, there are Christians who accept that evolution is real.