CrazyScientist
Those crazy scientists...
I really hate to bring this up on a thread where peacful relations seem to have been reestablished, but I have to point out some flaws in your logic. Here are the problems with your arguments, in no particular order.
As concerns the evolution of human parasites. There are two possible methods by which they have evolved. Which is true likely dependant on the parasites. One, they could have evovled concurrently with us. A parasite that infected a proto-human could adapt to a human body environment with little difficulty. After all our DNA is 98% similar to that of a chimp, so virtually all of our internal processes are the same. And btw whoever up there said our DNA also 90% similar to an amoeba is just plain wrong. Primitive eukaryotes like amoebae have genomes consisting of at best a few thousand genes while the human genome consists of nearly 40,000. Even if all of those genes were identical, which they are not (though some genes are that highly conserved....yes, there is good deal molecular evidence for the theory of evolution, beyond the substantial fossil evidence) that is more like 10% than 90.
Another way that human parasites, as well as diseases could evolve is through our interaction with animals. Any organsim which could pass from livestock to humans and be adaptable enough to survive would occupy a new ecological niche, and hence have a selective advantage, causing it to proliferate.
A similar story can be put forth with animal pollinated plants. Plants can also pollinate themselves by wind,and many still do so exclusively. Others however can spread their pollen farther by attaching it to animals, like birds, or bees, which come to feed on their nectar. Again we see natural selection at work, in the fact that windy areas tend to be dominated by wind-pollinated plants, while less windy areas favor the animal-pollinated.
As to the evolution of the photosynthesis/oxygen respiration cycle, I frankly don't know. I'm not an evolutionary biologist. I would suspect that yes, algae and other photosynthetic lifeforms were responsible for creating the oxygen atmosphere, which then created a niche for lifeforms that could respire oxygen, who quickly adapted to fill that niche. I may be dead wrong about that. I don't know. Nobody knows for sure because we weren't there, although I'm sure an evolutionary biologist could provide a more convincing explanation. The point is, there's often a reasonable explanation for phenomena out there if you take the time to think it out logically and don't just leap to chalk it up to God. I know religion must be a comforting thing, because with it one always has an explanation for everything in life. Like Fox, I often wish I could bring myself to look at the world that simply but I find I can't. At the dawn of civilization we just chalked everything up to God or gods, but as time passes we abandon those obsolete beliefs in the face of overwhelming empirical evidence. Cases in point.... The world is round, it revolves around the sun, maggots come from flies, and are not spontanteously generated.......the list goes on.
Ok this is one hell of a long post. I'll shut up now.
um... maybe AOL or somewhere there's a chat room for this. Maybe you guys can talk about it there....in response to SKILORD, has anyone played Maximo for the PS2? of Final Fantasy X. The PS2 ROCKS, X-BOX is now X-FLOP and the Gamecube is now the um...well.
you know.........(?)
...and where's FINAL FANTASY X, XI, and XII? "UMmmm...PS2?"
...Halo's coming out for PC, so...WHERE'S THE GAMES?
(no offense)
