I personally do not believe in evolution. I could list all of my reasons, but that would take up too much space so I'll just mention the main one:

I noticed that all of the creatures that animals have supposedly evolved from have become extinct with the evolution of the new animal. For example, you don't see Wooly Mammoths and that is what elephants supposedly evolved from. You don't see saber tooth tigers and that is what tigers supposedly evolved from. So if humans evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys? Why aren't they still evolving into humans? Sure there's the argument about big foot, but that's never been proven. So what is your take?

Pleeeeeease don't flame each other. I don't want my thread to get shut down because of flaming.

Well that's not exactly correct. Our closest relatives were the neanderthal and they are now extinct. Chimpanzees are the closest living relatives (DNA-wise) that we have.

Humans evolve from sperm... so I don't see why evolution is not possible. Just because one person has dial up and another has T1 doesn't mean evolution doesn't exist.

Evolution exists its just not all forms evolve that is the simple answer. Not everyone evolves into a billionaire. Some do and some dont.

As for the monkey into man, not all monkeys have to evolve into man to make it evolution. The world is far to big for it to happen. The easy explanation for some animals dieing off is they just never had the chance to evolve, not because evolution doesn't exist.

Some humans still live in caves while others live in luxury, the point is not everything evolves perfectly and at the same time all at once. If you look around the world you will see everywhere there are things that have not evolved while other things have.

Animals like woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers went extinct because they could not adapt to a changing environment. Or they evolved into something new. On the other hand, sharks are still around, relatively unchanged, after 300+ million years.

And humans did not evolve from modern monkeys. Both humans and monkeys had a common ancestor from which they are all descended, they just evolved seperately.

I believe in microevolution because it explains differences among certain animals such as dogs with all the different breeds. I don't believe in macroevolution though because of one thing. Marine life supposedly evolved into land animals. Obviously the marine life could breathe under water and mutation caused the formation of lungs to live on land. But how did the lungs become perfected. The first animal to mutate its DNA to add lungs and lung function, it couldn't have been perfect enough to survive and pass on that DNA. The lungs and every other system needed to live on land would need to be well enough adapted to survive at least one generation so those functions could pass on and grow. These animals obviously didn't have perfected structures to live on land if they are evolving so how did they survive long enough to pass on their data. Also where did this random new DNA to encode such things as lungs and other functions come from. After all the studying I've done I've never found a mutation that has added new functional DNA that didn't worsen the original species.

serphvarna : You cannot simply say "I believe in microevolution but not macroevolution." The two things are one and the same. The only seperating factor between the two is time. And because there is no clear way to distinguish when exactly microevolution begins and officially becomes macroevolution, the micro is simply used by scientists to refer to very short-term evolution. However, with too much time, microevolution becomes macroevolution.

As for that "missing link" between water and land animals, try something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils#Fish_to_Tetrapods.

Heck, you can just look at modern day fish that can survive out of water such as the mudskipper. Or the lungfish which has both primitive lungs and gills. Saying that after all the studying you have allegedly done, you have found nothing is not a very convinving argument; clearly your studies did not even take you so far as Wikipedia.

"I believe in microevolution because it explains differences among certain animals such as dogs with all the different breeds. I don't believe in macroevolution though because of one thing. Marine life supposedly evolved into land animals. Obviously the marine life could breathe under water and mutation caused the formation of lungs to live on land. But how did the lungs become perfected. The first animal to mutate its DNA to add lungs and lung function, it couldn't have been perfect enough to survive and pass on that DNA. The lungs and every other system needed to live on land would need to be well enough adapted to survive at least one generation so those functions could pass on and grow. These animals obviously didn't have perfected structures to live on land if they are evolving so how did they survive long enough to pass on their data. Also where did this random new DNA to encode such things as lungs and other functions come from. After all the studying I've done I've never found a mutation that has added new functional DNA that didn't worsen the original species."

"After all the studying I've done I've never found a mutation that has added new functional DNA that didn't worsen the original species."

And that right there is the real problem. This has never been found to my knowledge. Until it is I won't believe evolution is anything more than a theory that attempts to explain how the world is populated by all the stuff it is without allowing God to be part of the explanation. This theory is a big reason why I chose to go into business rather than science.

It's not like you can pin down the exact organism that originally had the mutation. I mean, the original change was a mutation but all the ones that followed were inherited and thus became normal traits.

geeogree : God can be part of the explanation. You could give him credit for getting water to Earth and simultaneously exist in its three forms which became the biggest precursor for life to begin.

I believe evolution exists. Why?

Because lots of humans DNA matches up with other organisms, such as yeast, or worms. What that means is that most of us probably came along because of one organism, no matter how small it was. The only thing everything is is a compound of chemicals, so whatever this original creature was, it was probably just a coincidence that enough chemicals came together at once.

I believe God exists. Do I believe he created us? No. All we are are basically code: Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, and Guanine. That's all we are: series of "codes" inside of DNA. As a matter of a fact, 99.9% of your DNA matches up with everybody else alive in this world. That proves my point again: we all had a common ancestor.

When you are made with a sperm and an egg, you adopt certain traits from both your mother and your father. That's how evolution works: If your father had a mutation such as feet, and you mother was a fish, you could end up as a fish with feet. Mutations are the base of evolution. When those mutations add up, you have a solid set of code such as the humans.

Who knows? Every human in a 1,000 years (supposing we live that long) could be completely different.

NotJon : I know I can give God credit for a lot of what has happened.... I don't believe in a solely creationist or evolutionist theory. But the theory of evolution has a noticeably Godless emphasis from most of the people I've talked to that believe in it.


And while I agree that you can't find the specific organism that had the mutation.... my point is that we have never observed that mutation happening nor have we been able to recreate in a lab. Mutations do not create new dna code.... they mess up old code.

In the bible (I think) it says that animals reproduced after their own kind.... which means within a species (maybe it's one level higher than that ).

the_casualty :

"Because lots of humans DNA matches up with other organisms, such as yeast, or worms. What that means is that most of us probably came along because of one organism, no matter how small it was."

Or that simply means we had a common creator.... maybe organisms on earth require 95+% of the same DNA structure in order to live and thrive in an oxygen based environment.

I'm not suggesting for a moment I know that evolution is wrong. I don't know how God made all the life on the earth, but I don't think it was the random chance that evolution claims.

I think evolution exists to an extant as in one species led to another by passing on traits through reproduction and adaptation other then that i think there is something greater pulling the strings!

ANd woot my 100th post ©

geeogree : In that sense we can say that religion and science are similar in that they try to explain why things are and that we need faith to trust the answers that they provide us with.

geeogree : No examples of DNA mutations that have increased fitness levels, eh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_resistance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation#Beneficial_mutations

That wasn't so hard.

Evolution is not a theory. It is a scientific theory, and that means it has been proven, not that it is a pile of random guesswork cobbled together by undergrad students over shots.

wow.... you looked up a wikipedia article.... now I'm convinced.

geeogree : You claimed you couldn't find evidence. Even Wikipedia has it. If you like, I can cite some peer-reviewed scientific literature as well.

nope.... I'm good. Those mutations do next to nothing change the actual species you're talking about. Resistance to bad things is like gaining a layer of fat in a colder climate. It's not evolution it's adaptation.

[edit] oh, and if your wonderful peer-review is anything like it is in the "climate change" field then you can pretty much toss all the peer-review out the window. Bunch of people agreeing with each other with next to no criticism. Hooray!

Traduweise : Wow you know the definition of Theory is a scientific explanation that cant be tested or proven

diabeticzach : actually if you want to get technical a theory can never be proven to be correct. It simply remains until it can be disproven and until then it is assumed to be the best explanation for it's subject matter.

geeogree : Thank you, Your right and i apologize i haven't taken a science class in almost 8 years so a little rusty on such things but luckily we have ppl like you to fill in the blanks

A scientific theory is something provable on an inductive level, but not a deductive level. It is simply an explanation for empirically tested data. If you don't like the explanation, feel free to suggest your own.

First, you need to understand the basic difference between acclimation and adaptation. Acclimation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acclimatization , is when an organism "hardens" itself to better cope with its environment. Your example of an animal putting on fat for the winter is a good example of acclimation.

Adaptation is when a change in an organism's DNA, that can be passed on through reproduction, makes it fitter. An example of that is http://www.medicinenet.com/mrsa_infection/article.htm .

As for the literature, peer-reviewed is peer-reviewed regardless of whether the subject is evolution, global warming, or rocket physics. If you take the time to read through some of the peer-reviewed literature, you will very quickly realise that scientists scrutinise and criticise intensely. For example, in the climate change department, I doubt you realise just how much scientists argue over stuff like http://www.springerlink.com/content/u653121t61774315/ .

If you want to insist that the peer-review process is just a bunch of people agreeing with each other, feel free to post evidence backing your claim up.