atheists and evolutionists..?

Question

i have a question for atheists and those who believe in evolution. well if evolution did happen in fact.. then shouldnt it still be happening? why would it stop? if you believe that is how we got here then it should still be a continuing process, because there are still apes and monkeys that live out there. in a few years will they be turning into humans? and will my fish slowly warp into a new creature and end up being human at some point? because if everything evolved it should still be evolving yes? serious answers please i asked myself this today after my husband had a conversation with an atheist at his job. what do you think?

Answer 1

It is still happening. Wow, this is probably the most ignorant question I've ever read regarding evolution.

New species are being created through evolution every week. Some speciations are actually observed by people. That's what evolution is; new species been created through dispersal, vacariance or change in habitat. Not created in the sense of god creating them but in the sense that they evolve so much that they are unable to mate with any other animal similar or dissimilar to them because it's either impossible or the offpring wouldn't be viable like we see in mules when horses and donkeys mate.

Answer 2

Religious folk are commonly confused by why "the rest of the monkeys" haven't yet turned into humans. The Evolution of of all species is more complicated than that, though. It is a slow process is not something you're going to be able to see in the the blink of an eye you are on the earth. You cannot just stare at a monkey and expect it to turn into a human.

An anthropology class is a good place to start with this. It will explain a lot, I guarantee it.

Also, when you're learning about evolution, try to keep an open mind. Don't go into it assuming that it's "anti God" and merely learning about it or believing in it is "evil." That's just a bunch of rubbish.

Answer 3

evolution hasn't stopped.

"As a flash of lightning in the duration of the night, so is the life of man in the duration of nature. When one looks out on a storm at night, he sees for an instant the landscape illumined by the lightning-flash. All seems at rest. The branches in the wind, the flying clouds, the falling rain are all motionless in this instantaneous view. The record on the retina takes no account of change, and to the eye the change does not exist. Brief as the lightning-flash in the storm is the life of man compared with the great time-record of life upon earth. To the untrained man who has not learned to read these records, species and types in life are enduring. Thus arose the theory of special creation and permanence of type, a theory which could not persist when the fact of change and the forces causing it came to be studied in detail."

humans are not the inevitable result of evolution. the original ape species, which lived probably about 30 million years ago, has produced humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans, gibbons, and an unknown number of intermediate and extinct species. there is no reason to suppose that any species alive today is "trying to become human". that just isn't how it works. also, i don't mean to say that there is anything special about the original ape species beyond the fact that it is the common ancestor of all modern apes. it surely had evolutionary ancestors and close relatives when it was around.

"It is perfectly true that, with the higher or anthropoid apes, the relations with man are extremely intimate. But man is not simply "a developed ape." Apes and men have diverged from the same primitive stock, apelike, manlike, but not exactly the one or the other. No apes or monkeys now extant could apparently have been ancestors of primitive man. None can ever "develop" into man. As man changes and diverges, race from race, so do they. The influence of effort, the influence of surroundings, the influence of the sifting process of natural selection, acts upon them as it acts upon man. "

Answer 4

What -- do you think evolution happens in days? Weeks? Months? The human race is a relatively new one, only being around for a few hundred thousand years. We evolved from another primate, as did the apes and chimps.

If you live for a few hundred thousand years, I'm sure you'll be able to see evolution doing its work. But, I bet there are microevolutionary examples you could look up to show you that evolution does happen.. without the wait of a few millenia.

Answer 5

Evolution is still occurring over millions of years.

Humans have slowed down evolution and natural selection by using technology to give ourselves things like medical care, food, shelter, and other stuff that prevent unnecessary death. Even in the short term, humans have adapted to their environments and influenced the gene pool. Here are some recent examples from our species:

Caucasian populations have a gene that helps them to process dairy after maturity, unlike other races. some Europeans now are genetically resistant to the black death (note that the plague wiped out 1/4 of Europe in the 14th century -- some of the people who survived to produce the next generation may have had better resilience).

Also note how the Native Americans were not resistant to many of the diseases brought by the Spanish, like smallpox, so many died upon exposure, unlike the Europeans. Some isolated populations in Africa also have the gene for sickle cell anemia, which helps to fight against Malaria but serves no purpose in other environments.

Evolution takes many generations. It has no fixed point. Other apes are not going to become "human," they'll simply adapt to an environment that defines life or death.

Your fish will not morph into a new creature. That's not how evolution works. Here is an illustration:

Imagine a large group of fish -- thousands -- that must constantly hide from a big predator, like a shark. The fish that are best at hiding will be the ones that survive to lay the next eggs. That's natural selection. Now imagine that a thousand years down the road, one fish hatches with a mutation that allows it to survive even better than its peers (mutations are common in ever living thing but most are not helpful). This fish could survive to the next generation, and the beneficial mutation will spread throughout the subsequent groups because it offers better chances of survival and edges out the fish without the gene. Now isolate the fish into two groups, allow them to evolve independently of each other (it could take millions of years), and they may be too different to reproduce (so many genes are changed that the chromosomes don't line up, so they can't breed anymore -- that's the line between one species or another)

The apes and monkeys question is a bit ridiculous, but I hear it a lot. We all share a common ancestor -- all life on this planet, not simply apes. Humans are also defined as apes because there is no physical category that humans and apes do not share. We are mammals, have body hair, social networks, raise our young, etc. Not to mention that our DNA is 98% identical to chimpanzees, our closest living ancestor. Every organism on this planet shows common ancestry. One need only study DNA -- the road map of our genes.

Hope this helps!

Evolution is not a matter of belief, but is supported by evidence. The only opposition to evolution seems to come from religious groups that equate evolution to atheism or who want to interpret the Koran or Genesis literally. It's no wonder that 99% of all scientists and 99.6% or all biological scientists agree with the evidence in favor of the theory.

I hope you'll actually read this instead of giving it a thumbs down, like many creationists tend to do.

Answer 6

First: Evolution is a continuing process, but it is a slow process.
Second: Individual animals do no evolve. One animal does not turn into another another. A species which is ill adopted to an environment will give rise to another species that is better adapted.
Third: Human beings are not the ultimate goal of evolution.
Evolution has no goal. Species that adapt survive. Species that do not adapt do not survive.

Answer 7

* There is no such thing as "evolutionists". Do you "believe in" gravity? Are you a gravitationist?
* Evolution is every much a fact as the theory of gravity.
* Over 99.8% of scientists in relevant field accept evolution.
* There are no alternative scientific theories.
* There is a huge amount of evidence in support of evolution...
* And zero evidence against it.
* The 'discussion' is actually educated people trying to educate others.
* The more intelligent a person is, the more likely they are to understand and accept evolution.
* The "discussion" only happens in backward places like Turkey and parts of the united states.


It doesn't stop. It happens all the time - but you can't see evolution in humans during one puny human life span. You can see it in bacteria and even insects, which have much shorter generations.

Answer 8

are you aware of the fact that in the past 50 years, an obesity epidemic has erupted in western nations?

thats right, in only 50 years, people have been getting fatter and fatter, at an alarming rate! The problem is, those anarchist hippies keep telling us its the big corporations like mcdonalds, burger king, kfc, etc that are to blame. Imbeciles! The culprit is none other than evolution!!! Even children today are huge; LONG before they have time to gain weight by actually eating. You cant tell me that is the result of fast food chains.

Answer 9

There's a theory called "punctuated equillibrium." Look it up, then see if your question is relevant.

Evolution has not ended. Have you ever wondered why we haven't had to get smallpox vaccinations and things like that? Because we've evolved to the point we're immune. New AIDS strands: immune to antibiotics, etc. EVOLUTION. It's not going to happen right before your eyes. Chances are, you'll be dead by the time we hit the next phase. You say this like species should be evolving every single day.

Humans are not the end point of evolution. If we are, the world is doomed.

Answer 10

It is still happening. Evolution isn't like on the X-Men. It doesn't magically happen. They have to be subtle mutations so they don't kill the organism and so it takes millions of years. There are still apes and monkeys because we didn't directly come from apes and monkeys, we came from the same ancestors.

I'll copy and paste what I put for another response:
One population gets split and isolated from the other. Different mutations occur in their respective populations and they have different needs since they're in different environments. The populations aren't able to procreate with one another and thus one species diverges and becomes a new one.

About as condensed as I can put it.