RateItAll: The Opinion Network

we are devo...

D. E. V. O.

Micro evolution, yes. Macro evolution, impossible. All things left on their own, tend to decay, disorganization, erosion and simplification.

Science deals with the observable PRESENT. Evolution/Creation are both theories that describe the PAST. You can use science to test evidence for a theory, but it still remains just a theory. A law is something that IS OBSERVABLE. It's a proven fact via thermodynamics and genetics that you need NEW INFORMATION for something to evolve from one unique organism to another. Evolution happens, but only if the master organism has all the information to start with. Frankly, it is impossible for something to evolve from one species to another. You only get variations within species. These things are PROVABLE via observable science in the present. But none of this matters of course because evolutionists reserve the right to change their story every time a new text book comes out.

It's happening before our eyes as the average size and shape of humans changes from generation to generation. And here's the good news; we are at the top of the food chain, which means - next stop extinction. We will evolve right out of existence. When I was born there were three billion humans. Today we are more than six billion of us and we are hungry and wasteful. We will get bigger and hungrier and eat ourselves into oblivion, just like old T-Rex. We'll be buried under a thick layer of our own garbage. My theory is that Racoons will inherit the earth. They are so darn smart and they love our garbage.

Yes, naive and stupid people said that this theory has humans evolving from monkeys
and not apes, as the theory goes ans all animals were thought to have evolved from primitive life forms. But who knows, there may have been some intelligient genetic engineering performed by and advance civilization or being that helped humanity to evolve advanced intelligence.

It makes sense, and is backed by scientific evidence.

I guess if a person wants to believe their relatives swung from trees, they're entitled to have that opinion, but I believe God created every human being as well as the animals, even apes.

The only theory! 'cause, IT IS BACKED BY EVIDENCE!

A buckshot-laden question, comparable to the old "have you stopped beating your wife" query (you'll get that steely-eyed *tsk, tsk* with either a "yes" or "no" reply). Fortunately, the last couple hundred years of applied research have yielded more-than-ample proof that evolution not only has taken place, but continues with regularity. I don't have to believe in it (as a child believes in the Easter Bunny); I can SEE it for myself, and therefore I KNOW that that knowledge is real. New varieties of animals and plants, pesticide-resistant bugs, kids who look far different than their parents, killer bacteria, the ever-expanding ladder of transitional fossil evidence: it's all there, tested and retested through peer review by scientists of every stripe, the finest system yet devised for finding out about the natural world. Break out your "game face", and stare it cold: at the end of each day, SCIENCE WORKS. It takes a right thing and makes it righter, leaving myth and guesswork to rattle around in truck-stop bathrooms (locked in the stalls, wiping with one-ply) as it zooms away over the horizons. Time and effort.....the two things that've gotten us this far, and the same two things that'll keep us going.

I believe in science and the scientific method. A strong preponderance of the evidence appears to support evolution. I shall go with the evidence.

Much to the consternation of religious zealots, evolution is largely accepted as established scientific fact. And quite frankly, all of the strained attempts to knock "holes" in it with protestations about supposed gaps and trying to split the difference with completely meritless ideas like "intelligent design" are just sad when they come out of people with triple digit IQs. As my father said to me on multiple occasions when growing up: It is one thing to lie to others but it is really bad when you start lying to yourself.

Who came first, the chicken or the egg?

Yep. I believe in the subject and I believe it should be taught in our public schools.

Duh. People that don't believe don't want to believe. I'd discuss the theory and how that word is misunderstood but what's the point- people have already made up their minds about this one.

Natural selection, okay, fine. Evolution as in one species comes from another. Humans from apes? No not so much. Here's the thing. Microbiologists are starting to call bull crap on the whole everything evolved from ameaba from the sea theory. They compare it to jumping a ditch. Pretend you are my neighbor and there is a three foot wide ditch in between our houses and I told you I jumped it. You would say, okay so what. Pretend it was ten feet and I told you I jumped it, you say well, that's not bad. Now the ditch is twenty five feet, now you would say that's pretty good, near the world record I would like to see that. Now the ditch is a hundred feet and you are calling bull crap. If the ditch was as wide as the Grand Canyon you would be suggesting therapy and institutionalization. That is the equivalant of saying all life came from ameaba in the sea, it's like me telling you I jumped the Grand Canyon. So therefore I do not believe in evolution.

This obvious, off course living things evolve.

Yes-I may be too scientific for my own good, but I cannot accept that we popped into thin air thousands of years ago, looking exactly as we do now. It definitely explains why monkeys and humans are so similiar.

Obviously. Look at the modern turkeys anatomical resemblance to the gallimimus!(A dinosaur)

About the only portion of Darwin's theory I can buy into is the part about natural selection. At our house we sum it up like this: Death seeks out the stupid.

I just want to talk about a little organism called a Bacterial Flagellum. Now this is no simple organism, it has in itself a motor and driveshaft which it uses to move around, now tell me, how did nothing create something completely complex as a little bacterial flagellum ??????? Go take a look for yourself: http://id-www.ucsb.edu/fscf/library/origins/graphics-captions/Flagellum.html

Hey, I've figured out how the dinosaurs died out in the creationist view of the world. You see, God sent his only son Jeezy Creezy to be the Messiah for the dinosaurs, but they didn't understand what was going on, so they ate him. He tasted like chicken, they said. So, God was so upset by that turn of events that he turned down the magical earth thermostat in heaven, and all the dinosaurs got really cold. Because they had eaten Jesus already, they couldn't find anyone with opposable thumbs (not even those darned evolutionist monkeys) to knit them sweaters. So they all died. Since Jesus was all pissed off about getting eaten by dinosaurs, God made mankind out of some dirt and a couple of gum wrappers (sounds like McGyver) and had Jesus come back to make them fishers of men. But when they found out that a lowly carpenter was trying to teach them how to fish, they ate him. And then they killed him. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Amen.

The question is not whether or not we HAVE Evolved,but if we will CONTINUE to Evolve or end up like the dinosaurs.

This most beautiful system of sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the council and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being. Sir Isaac Newton, regarded as the greatest scientist of all time.SEVERAL SIGNIFICANT PROBLEMS WITH THE BIG BANG THEORY... 1. Where did all the material present in the Big Bang Theory come from? 2. Why did the material suddenly explode? 3. Can an explosion bring about order? Evolutionary scientists have left the answer to the first two questions as simply unknown however, because of scientific experiment, the third question can be answered with an emphatic NO. It is an observable fact that the addition of certain types of energy, such as heat, always bring about disorder rather than structure. The evolutionary theory ignores this fact with the supposition of the BIG BANG. The theory masks the fact that the addition of chaotic energy always results in chaos. The 12 to 15 billion year time scale is based solely on the assumption that given enough time and a steady addition of energy, it is possible for order to come about! Even with the addition of billions of years, the theory continues to contradict the natural laws of nature. Don't die a fool as did Darwin!LIFE ONLY ARISES FROM LIFE!!!!

Absolutely, look at some apes, they behave like we do, or rather humans behave like apes!

I'm with Enkidu on this one, I have a feeling that trying to explain this in intricate detail would be completely pointless, but objective evidence supports it. From replication of DNA, mutations, viral and bacterial adaptations, paleobiology. Even the fact that a primeval atmosphere+high voltage (e.g.lightning) produces alot of organic chemicals essential for life. I dunno, next you'll be saying that Galelaeo was wrong and the Earth's really flat! UPDATE: I think some people have confused the diference between religious faith and scientific truth. A scientific truth is phenomenon which can be independantly and predictably shown to occur. An example of this is that pure water boils at 100 degrees celcius at 1 atmosphere of pressure. Religious faith (such as belief in God) can't be proven as any phenomenon which some might claim to be attributable to God can not proven as such as there will always be alternative explainations. However, just because the existence of God has not been objectively proven doesn't mean it hasn't been disproven either, simply that this is a question that science is incapable of answering. Therefore there is no real confict between science and religious. As far as evolution is concerned, it's referred to as a 'theory' because it can't be repeated, but there are various sources of evidence to show that it happened. For example, bacteria can replicate every 30 minutes, which means you have a new generation every 30 minutes (which works out at about 350 generations in a week) and therefore can adapt rapidly to changes in their environment. In spite of this it still took decades for antibiotic resistant stains of bacteria to occur. In contrast modern humans (Homo Sapiens) have been around for about 120,000 years (you can scientifcally prove this by radio carbon dating) that means that you've had about that same number of bacterial generations in about 13 weeks as there have human generations in all that time! As a final point, it's probably more insightful to think evolution in terms of genes, since although you might only live to the age of 70 or 80, your genes have probably been passed down from one generation to the next for millions of years. An extension of this concept is that you are a handy way for your genes to get passed on, or put simply, you are there for you genes not the other way around. Anyway, just a little food for though. Feel free to contact me if you want to question me or need me to elaborate further (or see the link which is probably more useful). http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/index.html UPDATE2: I'm starting to sound like a biology teacher, which REALLY isn't good, but here goes: God, heaven, hell, angels, souls, the devil, ghost time, kharma, the day of reckoning are all examples of 'articles of faith'. Their presence is untestable and so either you belive in them or you don't. The basis of evolution IS that one species evolves from another. Looking at (and carbon dating) fossils actually shows that humans share an evolutionary ancestor with chimpanzees around 6-8 million years ago. Finally, evolution is based on the concept of natural selection, whereby the weakest individuals die and only the strong survive long enough to successfully pass on their genes. This no longer applies to industrialised countries because we have sanitation, healthcare and unnaturally large amounts of food, making premature death the exception as opposed to the norm. The reason people in Africa for example die around 30 years earlier than in the west is due to these environmental factors not because they are 'less evolved'. If anything, you could perhaps argue that populations in industrialised societies are evolving more slowly because more 'desirable' genes are being passed on along with less 'desirable' ones. Although this is the logic eugenics was based on, so I'm adding this final point as an observation NOT as a suggestion!

Not anymore. I used to.

I believe our human bodies are adaptable, but not to the point of creating one form of life into another. I believe man has a spirit and is the only creature on earth that does. To say we live longer because of evolution is not necessarily true, since man over 2,000 years ago averaged over 100 years of life.

I believe in evolution due to the fact that microevolution takes place and is an observable phenomenon within a person's lifetime, so it would make sense that, over several thousand or more years, the little changes add up. Evolution is simply change over time, Descent with Modification, something that happens with every generation to at least a small extent; I, after all, am not a carbon copy of either of my parents, no one is, and my children someday will be even further removed from what my ancestors were. That, however, does not affect any of my spiritual beliefs. PS. What the hell does the Big Bang Theory have ANYTHING to do with descent with modification? Trying to link two very distinctly separate ideas, and argue how one is supposedly wrong in order to prove the other is wrong is an invalid argument. MAJOR UPDATE: ALRIGHT, I have serious issues with this Dr. Dino--I have heard of him and his rather interesting beliefs before; his so-called challenge for anyone to prove the theory of evolution includes proving time, space and matter came into existence by themselves and planets and stars formed by space dust . . . Problem being: EVOLUTION IS ABOUT DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION IN LIVING BEINGS, NOT ABOUT THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE! Any fool who claims to be a Doctor and Expert on evolution who can't tell the difference should really look it up. He fully accepts microevolution--that is to say small changes in animals, but he somehow thinks that 1) science is trying to prove that animals evolved in such a way that you got a fish to a bird in one jump, and 2) science is somehow trying to disprove god; if he had paid ANY attention to even a simple biology class, he would know that it is ridiculous to believe that (which he hasn't--his so-called doctorate is from Patriot University, a known degree mill whose only accreditation is from the American Accrediting Association of Theological Institutions, who hands out accreditation to anyone for a $100 charge. He's hardly an authority on Evolution if he doesn't even know the scientific definition of the word). Evolution is about the little changes that eventually add up, much like pennies tossed in a jar add up over a few years. Evolution is not about disproving god--it has nothing to do with religion. Evolution is just the simple observation that change happens over time with living creatures, yet even though it is clearly observable, people somehow take offense to it. There is no worship in the belief of evolution--many scientists who study evolution are Christian. Evolution is just common sense, it's saying Things change with generations. ANOTHER ADDITION: Upon looking up the Mar. 2001 article mentioned in a post in the USA Today, it seems that the find, Kenyanthropus platyops, suggests that the discovery means that modern humans could have sprung from at least two possible lineages, not one.; Kenyanthropus shows persuasively that at least two lineages [of early humans] existed as far back as 3.5 million years ago, It doesn't sound like this at all contradicts evolution. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/USAToday/69933705.html?did=69933705&FMT=ABS&FMTS=&date=Mar+22%2C+2001&author=Tim+Friend&desc= Discovery+rocks+human-origin+theories+Fossil+challenges+one-lineage+belief; http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/hominid010321.html

Definitly a loving creator would not make us or anything else he created in a fixed state where we could not adapt to our environment. For example -all human beings came from the same two people but we all are all different colors (depending on where our ancestors lived hot places darker more melatonin, cold places light little or no melatonin). If there were no evolution we would all look just like adam and eve and each other.

Absolutely. It's the theory that best fits the facts. Evolution is easy to observe in organisms with short life-spans: viruses, bacteria: not only is it easy to observe, but DNA sequencing shows the mutation and adaptation clearly. People who oppose teaching evolution do so for reasons which have nothing to do with science. There's no one so blind as the one who WON'T see. UPDATE: how comforting to know that God exhales carbon dioxide; I'm glad Genesis makes that so clear. I considered writing a paragraph here on soil chemistry and common naturally occurring elements, but I realize I am wasting my time.

It amazes me that certain people place faith in fairy tales over faith in observed facts. Evolution may not be perfect, but it's the best we've come up with so far without having to resort to mythical spirits and men who come back from the dead (they don't, dummy).

How else to explain George Steinbrenner? Slugs to scorpions to Steinbrenners.

Of course I believe in evolution. If it were a flawed theory it would not have stood as a theory for over 150 years without a viable alternative(and don't say that creationism has lasted far longer and mistake this for some kind of validation; creationism is not a scientific theory, it's preposterous - people believed for thousands of years that the best defense against the spirits of ill health was to never bathe, and that has been debunked as an idea). Evolution is accepted by the scientific community, and no other theory is even considered for very long.

NO! Oh man this is getting so annoying! I believe in Creation, and creation only! If u have a problem with that, I'm sorry, cuz it's what I believe and I'm sticking to it!