Gastric ReFlux
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Creation vs. Evolution
- Thread starter TedG
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starlifter
Deity
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About C-14, my comments were about a specific aspect of an error mode, and in no way imply the C-14 process or theory is invalid.
Some general comments about C14d. First, it is a fairly precise process, if the samples are properly preprocessed. If not, it can stll be precise (small deviation), but large in error. There are less than an dozen labs in the world capable of both accuracy and precision.
Second, the process itself. All living things take in 3 carbon isotopes, C12, C13, and C14. C14 happens to be unstable, or radioacitve -- It decays at a rate of one half every 5570 years. This is known as a half-life. The practical upper limit on this method is about 10 half lives, or 50,000 to 60,000 years. Beyond that, even the most precise labs cannot determina an accurate result. The older the sample, the less precise the results.
BTW, I am a Physics Professor (life credential in CA), though due to my current jobs, I have not had time to teach in over 10 years. However, just being a prof/teacher/scientist does not make me or anyone else an automatic expert on all things Physics
.
Some general comments about C14d. First, it is a fairly precise process, if the samples are properly preprocessed. If not, it can stll be precise (small deviation), but large in error. There are less than an dozen labs in the world capable of both accuracy and precision.
Second, the process itself. All living things take in 3 carbon isotopes, C12, C13, and C14. C14 happens to be unstable, or radioacitve -- It decays at a rate of one half every 5570 years. This is known as a half-life. The practical upper limit on this method is about 10 half lives, or 50,000 to 60,000 years. Beyond that, even the most precise labs cannot determina an accurate result. The older the sample, the less precise the results.
BTW, I am a Physics Professor (life credential in CA), though due to my current jobs, I have not had time to teach in over 10 years. However, just being a prof/teacher/scientist does not make me or anyone else an automatic expert on all things Physics
.
FearlessLeader2
Fundamentalist Loon
I noticed that at Error Corrections, they acknowledge that the menthod produces inaccurate results for a variety of reasons, and for most of them, the solution is 'interpretation', which is also one of the error sources.
Yep, that's right. 'We know this process blows monkey nuts, but if you interpret the results, and account for errors in interpretation by having a lot of people interpret them, it'll all be just fine.'
And I'm the only one that this strikes as, if not actually dishonest, at the very least, overly credulent.
Whatever.
FearlessLeader2
Fundamentalist Loon
Spaffle dibble norf gloip? Perm spivven nable klim?
FearlessLeader2
Fundamentalist Loon
I once read a very interesting description of the supposed evolution of the bombardier beetle's ability to basically have a built-in flamethrower. It reads like Natural Selection had a plan. You can probably find it on TalkOrigins.
The intelligence and diligence shown by the supposedly random events labelled Natural Selection is one of my major problems with evolutionary theory. We're supposed to believe that evolution leaves everything to chance, but then stacks the deck by using Natural Selection to pick and choose. I'm not a big believer in having your cake and eating it too. Blind chance mutations and their Selector sound a lot like a convoluted way of saying 'God made the new mutations'.
FearlessLeader2
Fundamentalist Loon
If they are correct, why do they need proof? Would Moses have understood the science behind what God showed him?
How is Genesis not correct about measuring time? You claim that 'we agree' on this, but I have no such misperceptions burdening me.
So why did it take man some 1,000 years of research and introspection to figure it out himself? Seems to me that if all science could come up with was:
"Something, we think Natural Selection, chose which random mutations to keep. Over the course of a great many years, this led to life slowly growing more complex in the sea, and eventually spreading to land. We're pretty sure that of the listed organisms below, fish came first, then early land creatures (probably amphibians, then reptiles) birds, and last of all, man."
...then it could have saved itself a lot of time and needless effort by opening up a Bible and thumbing through Genesis. The only difference between the two is that the Bible says God did it, while evolution really isn't clear on who/what is responsible, other than a combination of 'random' mutations, and a selecting process that seems sentient, based on its ability to preserve life despite various catastrophes, and make it more specialized and complicated at the same time.
Someone want to tell me the point again? Oh yeah, that's right. The atheists need a 'creation myth' too.
FearlessLeader2
Fundamentalist Loon
*Snicker* Uneducated and ignorant? You call me uneducated and ignorant, and then in your next breath, you make the arrogant claim that you can disprove all religious dogma/BS.
Your arrogance is...wholly expected, and not at all fresh or new.
Challenge you in one area, and you'll refute it eh? Okay, I'll bite.
Here's one for you: What is the point of a theory of how life became diverse, when there is nothing approaching an accepted or even plausible explanation of how it started in the first place?
You have a theory that can be likened to a train of boxcars full of cargo, with no engine to pull it.Tell us all where life came from, then maybe you can get your train moving(IE maybe I'll consider your pet theory).
FearlessLeader2
Fundamentalist Loon
Evolutionists may not like Creation, but they'll still face judgement after Armageddon.
(Works both ways, doesn't it?)
newfangle
hates you.
Here you go FL2, don't get too overwhelmed.
Now, you could argue all of the downfalls of evolution to the extreme. The simple explanation for this is that humans lack complete understanding of it.
Going back further in the evolutionary chain, is the idea of a carbon compound comet that crashed into young Earth some 4.6 billion years ago. Containing enough amino acids, very primitive life was able to form from organic compounds. Some would call this abeogenisis (sp?), and they'd be correct to a certain extent.
Going back further, one must wonder how the comet was created. Probably born within a star, through various fusion process (the products of fusion can include very heavy elements, not just helium).
Now, how were these stars created? Some sort of universal singularity some 15 billion years, whether the big bang or not.
Now there are many theories to describe why the big bang happened. I personal enjoy the something from nothing theory. At the subatomic level, a set of laws governs the probably of events occuring, called quantam mechanics. It has been experimentally shown that particles can materialize from nothing at all, not even energy. They are constantly popping in and out of existance. Most people lack the ability to visualize something from nothing, but it is certainly possible.
This leads to neutrinogenesis, which describes the something from nothing to greater detail, such as a universal balance between quarks and leptons in the beginning (quarks make of protons and neutrons, leptons consist of classes of electrons and neutrinos). One day, the balance was offset from something from nothing, causing a small number of quarks to be created.
The matter-antimatter theory is basically the same.
Well, I guess we don't need a creator. I think that the above theories are a little easier to believe in than some dude on a cloud going, "Hey lets make some crap."
Two books which tend to explain things better than a Canadian like me are "About Time" by Paul Davies, and of course, "A Brief History of Time," by Hawking. Both authors are reasonably relgious (sigh), so they are not completely biased. Also, for an indepth explanation of the superstring theory, which offers some insight to the big bang and other singularities, check out "The Elegant Universe," written by Michael Greene I believe.
The problem with you fundamentalists is that instead of supporting your own viewpoints, you look at flaws in other ones. I am here trying to show that it is more likely that the universe was a set of random events rather than a grand plan.
Finally, I find it interesting that God never wants anyone to challange him. Isn't that convienant.
Now, you could argue all of the downfalls of evolution to the extreme. The simple explanation for this is that humans lack complete understanding of it.
Going back further in the evolutionary chain, is the idea of a carbon compound comet that crashed into young Earth some 4.6 billion years ago. Containing enough amino acids, very primitive life was able to form from organic compounds. Some would call this abeogenisis (sp?), and they'd be correct to a certain extent.
Going back further, one must wonder how the comet was created. Probably born within a star, through various fusion process (the products of fusion can include very heavy elements, not just helium).
Now, how were these stars created? Some sort of universal singularity some 15 billion years, whether the big bang or not.
Now there are many theories to describe why the big bang happened. I personal enjoy the something from nothing theory. At the subatomic level, a set of laws governs the probably of events occuring, called quantam mechanics. It has been experimentally shown that particles can materialize from nothing at all, not even energy. They are constantly popping in and out of existance. Most people lack the ability to visualize something from nothing, but it is certainly possible.
This leads to neutrinogenesis, which describes the something from nothing to greater detail, such as a universal balance between quarks and leptons in the beginning (quarks make of protons and neutrons, leptons consist of classes of electrons and neutrinos). One day, the balance was offset from something from nothing, causing a small number of quarks to be created.
The matter-antimatter theory is basically the same.
Well, I guess we don't need a creator. I think that the above theories are a little easier to believe in than some dude on a cloud going, "Hey lets make some crap."
Two books which tend to explain things better than a Canadian like me are "About Time" by Paul Davies, and of course, "A Brief History of Time," by Hawking. Both authors are reasonably relgious (sigh), so they are not completely biased. Also, for an indepth explanation of the superstring theory, which offers some insight to the big bang and other singularities, check out "The Elegant Universe," written by Michael Greene I believe.
The problem with you fundamentalists is that instead of supporting your own viewpoints, you look at flaws in other ones. I am here trying to show that it is more likely that the universe was a set of random events rather than a grand plan.
Finally, I find it interesting that God never wants anyone to challange him. Isn't that convienant.
newfangle
hates you.
"Judgement after Armegeddon"
Yeesh, you keep an slipping further and further from reality.
Yeesh, you keep an slipping further and further from reality.
newfangle
hates you.
And for GOD sakes FL2, stop making fun of people who don't see things your twisted way. Only we are allowed to make fun of you.
CurtSibling
ENEMY ACE™
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2001
- Messages
- 29,453
Originally posted by FearlessLeader2
Evolutionists may not like Creation, but they'll still face judgement after Armageddon.
(Works both ways, doesn't it?)
I'll judge Armageddon right now!
"It is a crap film!"
"I've seen Willis in better form!"
Judgement is complete!
Hamlet
Manic Depressive
Why can't god give us a date for armageddon?
Or is it another one of those mysterious topics that is beyond the understanding of us morons, and should we just trust our fates to an omnipotent being?
Gimme evidence for god, and I'll believe. Until then, I'll chose to believe in something that, no matter how tenuous the evidence for it, doesn't simply require you to have faith in it.
I find it a beautiful Irony that some of the most patriotic, 'I'd ignite my own granny to protect the ideals of The US' people, are also the most god-fearing Americans.
You couldn't get such a firm belief in enlightenment ideals juxtaposed with such devout religious fervour. Only in America, as they say.
FearlessLeader2
Fundamentalist Loon
The more complex version is that it is wrong, but scientists cling to it anyway because they stand to gain lots of prestige and money from the research, and supporters cling to it because it bolsters their belief in the non-existence of God.
And how did these carbon compunds survive re-entry, let alone the sterilizing torrents of hard radiation to be had in abundance out in space? Good grief, haven't you got anything substantial?
Well, you're in pretty lonely territory. The current odds-on favorite is the multi-dimensional universe brane collision theory, in which the BB was actually a series of overlapping and simultaneous explosions of matter and energy caused by the collision in the fifth through seventh dimensions of several energy fields called 'branes', which resulted in the subsequent collapse of those dimensions into very small dimensions now referred to as the Planck dimensions, because the size ratio from our three to those three is 1:1* 10^-17billionth . The theory holds up to examination from most all branches of physics, and seems to be the most accurate model to date of what happened at the beginning of the universe. Still no word on what caused the branes to collide...
And you are not doing a very good job of it. I don't think it is your fault though. You are arguing from a mistaken perspective, and have to work with what you have. Not your fault that you can't prove something that isn't true.
I find it rather inconvienent. If I knew for a fact one way or the other, it would be a lot easier to exercise faith in God in the face of criticism and ridicule from 'intellectuals' like you. Then again, if I knew for a fact, how could I call belief in God 'faith'? If I knew with absolute certainty that was based on proof, I would have no faith at all. I'd just be acknowledging the facts.
I know, with absolute certainty, that God is real, and that He is sending His Son soon. I know this without proof, beyond that of His Word. I have opened my eyes to the accuracy of His Word's prophecies, and as a result, I have no choice but to believe.
FearlessLeader2
Fundamentalist Loon
Not can't, won't. If we all knew that God was coming on October 7th, 2012, well, alot of folks would be getting baptized on the 6th, wouldn't they?
Nope, His day is coming like 'a thief in the night.'
And since you edited your post, I'll edit my reply:
I am not patriotic in any way, shape, or form. The US is where I was born, nothing more. I don't salute the flag, I don't say the Pledge, and I will never serve in the military.
FearlessLeader2
Fundamentalist Loon
And why is that?
You can dish it out, but can't take it?
CurtSibling
ENEMY ACE™
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2001
- Messages
- 29,453
FL2, Oh please!
If I knew a unlikely end to our world was happening tommorow,
do you seriously think I would run to the nearest church to say sorry?
Or fall to my knees, praying in sudden realisation of my evil paganistic outlook?
Not in this dimension.
I would die standing like a man, safe in the knowledge I died a free spirit and on my feet with defiance!
No threatened armageddon is going to cow me and other free men.
No offence.
If I knew a unlikely end to our world was happening tommorow,
do you seriously think I would run to the nearest church to say sorry?
Or fall to my knees, praying in sudden realisation of my evil paganistic outlook?
Not in this dimension.
I would die standing like a man, safe in the knowledge I died a free spirit and on my feet with defiance!
No threatened armageddon is going to cow me and other free men.
No offence.
philippe
FYI, I chase trains.
FL2.The man who says the devil cuased WW1 proves himself to be ignorant for the facts again.....
You not even respond of the bacteria you just typ nonsense.This gives me the impression you lost and such you just typ random letters.
Please give me a break, armageddon.Soon you are going to say your the new Jezus and that there are in heaven poeple with lionheads talking always:amen!
(it says that in the bible!)
I think if you where born in another country with other teachings you would now be screaming:ALL obey vishnu!!!!
God is a myth made up by a tribe to explain natural things.
Oh ,But all who has another opinion are fools and idiots he? You believe in the same God who destroyed entire towns with babies,women and animals and who then a few 100 years later says:"love your enemy"?
Evolution makes sense.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html
Go read it.
Evolution is a change in the gene pool of a population over time. A gene is a hereditary unit that can be passed on unaltered for many generations. The gene pool is the set of all genes in a species or population.
The English moth, Biston betularia, is a frequently cited example of observed evolution. [evolution: a change in the gene pool] In this moth there are two color morphs, light and dark. H. B. D. Kettlewell found that dark moths constituted less than 2% of the population prior to 1848. The frequency of the dark morph increased in the years following. By 1898, the 95% of the moths in Manchester and other highly industrialized areas were of the dark type. Their frequency was less in rural areas. The moth population changed from mostly light colored moths to mostly dark colored moths. The moths' color was primarily determined by a single gene. [gene: a hereditary unit] So, the change in frequency of dark colored moths represented a change in the gene pool. [gene pool: the set all of genes in a population] This change was, by definition, evolution.
The increase in relative abundance of the dark type was due to natural selection. The late eighteen hundreds was the time of England's industrial revolution. Soot from factories darkened the birch trees the moths landed on. Against a sooty background, birds could see the lighter colored moths better and ate more of them. As a result, more dark moths survived until reproductive age and left offspring. The greater number of offspring left by dark moths is what caused their increase in frequency. This is an example of natural selection.
Populations evolve. [evolution: a change in the gene pool] In order to understand evolution, it is necessary to view populations as a collection of individuals, each harboring a different set of traits. A single organism is never typical of an entire population unless there is no variation within that population. Individual organisms do not evolve, they retain the same genes throughout their life. When a population is evolving, the ratio of different genetic types is changing -- each individual organism within a population does not change. For example, in the previous example, the frequency of black moths increased; the moths did not turn from light to gray to dark in concert. The process of evolution can be summarized in three sentences: Genes mutate. [gene: a hereditary unit] Individuals are selected. Populations evolve.
Evolution can be divided into microevolution and macroevolution. The kind of evolution documented above is microevolution. Larger changes, such as when a new species is formed, are called macroevolution. Some biologists feel the mechanisms of macroevolution are different from those of microevolutionary change. Others think the distinction between the two is arbitrary -- macroevolution is cumulative microevolution.
The word evolution has a variety of meanings. The fact that all organisms are linked via descent to a common ancestor is often called evolution. The theory of how the first living organisms appeared is often called evolution. This should be called abiogenesis. And frequently, people use the word evolution when they really mean natural selection -- one of the many mechanisms of evolution.
Common Misconceptions about Evolution
Evolution can occur without morphological change; and morphological change can occur without evolution. Humans are larger now than in the recent past, a result of better diet and medicine. Phenotypic changes, like this, induced solely by changes in environment do not count as evolution because they are not heritable; in other words the change is not passed on to the organism's offspring. Phenotype is the morphological, physiological, biochemical, behavioral and other properties exhibited by a living organism. An organism's phenotype is determined by its genes and its environment. Most changes due to environment are fairly subtle, for example size differences. Large scale phenotypic changes are obviously due to genetic changes, and therefore are evolution.
Evolution is not progress. Populations simply adapt to their current surroundings. They do not necessarily become better in any absolute sense over time. A trait or strategy that is successful at one time may be unsuccessful at another. Paquin and Adams demonstrated this experimentally. They founded a yeast culture and maintained it for many generations. Occasionally, a mutation would arise that allowed its bearer to reproduce better than its contemporaries. These mutant strains would crowd out the formerly dominant strains. Samples of the most successful strains from the culture were taken at a variety of times. In later competition experiments, each strain would outcompete the immediately previously dominant type in a culture. However, some earlier isolates could outcompete strains that arose late in the experiment. Competitive ability of a strain was always better than its previous type, but competitiveness in a general sense was not increasing. Any organism's success depends on the behavior of its contemporaries. For most traits or behaviors there is likely no optimal design or strategy, only contingent ones. Evolution can be like a game of paper/scissors/rock.
Organisms are not passive targets of their environment. Each species modifies its own environment. At the least, organisms remove nutrients from and add waste to their surroundings. Often, waste products benefit other species. Animal dung is fertilizer for plants. Conversely, the oxygen we breathe is a waste product of plants. Species do not simply change to fit their environment; they modify their environment to suit them as well. Beavers build a dam to create a pond suitable to sustain them and raise young. Alternately, when the environment changes, species can migrate to suitable climes or seek out microenvironments to which they are adapted.
Evolution requires genetic variation. If there were no dark moths, the population could not have evolved from mostly light to mostly dark. In order for continuing evolution there must be mechanisms to increase or create genetic variation and mechanisms to decrease it. Mutation is a change in a gene. These changes are the source of new genetic variation. Natural selection operates on this variation.
Genetic variation has two components: allelic diversity and non- random associations of alleles. Alleles are different versions of the same gene. For example, humans can have A, B or O alleles that determine one aspect of their blood type. Most animals, including humans, are diploid -- they contain two alleles for every gene at every locus, one inherited from their mother and one inherited from their father. Locus is the location of a gene on a chromosome. Humans can be AA, AB, AO, BB, BO or OO at the blood group locus. If the two alleles at a locus are the same type (for instance two A alleles) the individual would be called homozygous. An individual with two different alleles at a locus (for example, an AB individual) is called heterozygous. At any locus there can be many different alleles in a population, more alleles than any single organism can possess. For example, no single human can have an A, B and an O allele.
Considerable variation is present in natural populations. At 45 percent of loci in plants there is more than one allele in the gene pool. [allele: alternate version of a gene (created by mutation)] Any given plant is likely to be heterozygous at about 15 percent of its loci. Levels of genetic variation in animals range from roughly 15% of loci having more than one allele (polymorphic) in birds, to over 50% of loci being polymorphic in insects. Mammals and reptiles are polymorphic at about 20% of their loci - - amphibians and fish are polymorphic at around 30% of their loci. In most populations, there are enough loci and enough different alleles that every individual, identical twins excepted, has a unique combination of alleles.
Linkage disequilibrium is a measure of association between alleles of two different genes. [allele: alternate version of a gene] If two alleles were found together in organisms more often than would be expected, the alleles are in linkage disequilibrium. If there two loci in an organism (A and B) and two alleles at each of these loci (A1, A2, B1 and B2) linkage disequilibrium (D) is calculated as D = f(A1B1) * f(A2B2) - f(A1B2) * f(A2B1) (where f(X) is the frequency of X in the population). [Loci (plural of locus): location of a gene on a chromosome] D varies between -1/4 and 1/4; the greater the deviation from zero, the greater the linkage. The sign is simply a consequence of how the alleles are numbered. Linkage disequilibrium can be the result of physical proximity of the genes. Or, it can be maintained by natural selection if some combinations of alleles work better as a team.
Natural selection maintains the linkage disequilibrium between color and pattern alleles in Papilio memnon. [linkage disequilibrium: association between alleles at different loci] In this moth species, there is a gene that determines wing morphology. One allele at this locus leads to a moth that has a tail; the other allele codes for a untailed moth. There is another gene that determines if the wing is brightly or darkly colored. There are thus four possible types of moths: brightly colored moths with and without tails, and dark moths with and without tails. All four can be produced when moths are brought into the lab and bred. However, only two of these types of moths are found in the wild: brightly colored moths with tails and darkly colored moths without tails. The non-random association is maintained by natural selection. Bright, tailed moths mimic the pattern of an unpalatable species. The dark morph is cryptic. The other two combinations are neither mimetic nor cryptic and are quickly eaten by birds.
Assortative mating causes a non-random distribution of alleles at a single locus. [locus: location of a gene on a chromosome] If there are two alleles (A and a) at a locus with frequencies p and q, the frequency of the three possible genotypes (AA, Aa and aa) will be p2, 2pq and q2, respectively. For example, if the frequency of A is 0.9 and the frequency of a is 0.1, the frequencies of AA, Aa and aa individuals are: 0.81, 0.18 and 0.01. This distribution is called the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.
Non-random mating results in a deviation from the Hardy-Weinberg distribution. Humans mate assortatively according to race; we are more likely to mate with someone of own race than another. In populations that mate this way, fewer heterozygotes are found than would be predicted under random mating. [heterozygote: an organism that has two different alleles at a locus] A decrease in heterozygotes can be the result of mate choice, or simply the result of population subdivision. Most organisms have a limited dispersal capability, so their mate will be chosen from the local population.
http://www.nsta.org/pbsevolution4
Another link.
More Evolution Q&A
Q. What is the most widely recognized ancestor to humans (Homo sapiens sapiens)? (Brandon, Fayetteville High School)
A. Humans came late to the evolutionary party. Life has been evolving for almost four million years now, and we humans (Homo sapiens) arose in our present form just 200,000 years ago. If we were to compress all of evolution into one day, we would appear at about 2 seconds before midnight! Another way to think of the evolutionary relatedness of all life is like a tree. There is a single trunk or stem that represents the common ancestor of all life 4 billion years ago. The various branches and smaller branchlets of the tree represent the continuous diversification of life as ancestral organisms give rise to related but different descendants.
The branch that gave rise to humans is called the hominid family. This family also contains at least four other groups of upright walkers that are closely related to humans but are now extinct. These now-extinct close cousins of ours have such funny names as Australopithecus, Paranthropus, Kenyanthropus, and Ardipithecus. We know of them from fossil skeletons that have been found in Africa. Perhaps the best known of these hominid cousins is Lucy. She was one of the Australopithecus group, and she lived about 3.4 million years ago, well before Homo sapiens appeared.
Six million years ago in east Africa, the hominid group as a whole branched off from the chimp-gorilla branch and went their separate evolutionary ways. One of the five lines of these hominids (we dont know exactly which one yet) eventually gave rise to us Homo sapiens 200,000 years ago. All of the other hominids went extinct for reasons that we still do not understand. Perhaps they were unable to adjust to changing climates, perhaps they were not as intelligent as Homo sapiens, or perhaps they succumbed to disease. We may never know for sure. Because all of these closer relatives are now gone, our closest living relative--the one we separated from 6 million years ago--is the chimp. We share 99% of our DNA with the chimp. If we could sequence the DNA of one of our extinct hominid cousins, we would find an even closer degree of genetic similarity.
I think this will give you the answer to apes and humans
Gonna give you more links you can chew on:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v20n2_mcintosh.asp
http://informationcentre.tripod.com/evolve4.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
"When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled."
- Charles Darwin
The Origin of Species, p. 647
EDIT1:spelling errors
EDIT2:more spelling errors
this post is 15,000 chars long after i had to shorten it from 18,000!
I rest my case
You not even respond of the bacteria you just typ nonsense.This gives me the impression you lost and such you just typ random letters.
Please give me a break, armageddon.Soon you are going to say your the new Jezus and that there are in heaven poeple with lionheads talking always:amen!
(it says that in the bible!)I think if you where born in another country with other teachings you would now be screaming:ALL obey vishnu!!!!
God is a myth made up by a tribe to explain natural things.
Oh ,But all who has another opinion are fools and idiots he?
You believe in the same God who destroyed entire towns with babies,women and animals and who then a few 100 years later says:"love your enemy"? Evolution makes sense.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html
Go read it.
Evolution is a change in the gene pool of a population over time. A gene is a hereditary unit that can be passed on unaltered for many generations. The gene pool is the set of all genes in a species or population.
The English moth, Biston betularia, is a frequently cited example of observed evolution. [evolution: a change in the gene pool] In this moth there are two color morphs, light and dark. H. B. D. Kettlewell found that dark moths constituted less than 2% of the population prior to 1848. The frequency of the dark morph increased in the years following. By 1898, the 95% of the moths in Manchester and other highly industrialized areas were of the dark type. Their frequency was less in rural areas. The moth population changed from mostly light colored moths to mostly dark colored moths. The moths' color was primarily determined by a single gene. [gene: a hereditary unit] So, the change in frequency of dark colored moths represented a change in the gene pool. [gene pool: the set all of genes in a population] This change was, by definition, evolution.
The increase in relative abundance of the dark type was due to natural selection. The late eighteen hundreds was the time of England's industrial revolution. Soot from factories darkened the birch trees the moths landed on. Against a sooty background, birds could see the lighter colored moths better and ate more of them. As a result, more dark moths survived until reproductive age and left offspring. The greater number of offspring left by dark moths is what caused their increase in frequency. This is an example of natural selection.
Populations evolve. [evolution: a change in the gene pool] In order to understand evolution, it is necessary to view populations as a collection of individuals, each harboring a different set of traits. A single organism is never typical of an entire population unless there is no variation within that population. Individual organisms do not evolve, they retain the same genes throughout their life. When a population is evolving, the ratio of different genetic types is changing -- each individual organism within a population does not change. For example, in the previous example, the frequency of black moths increased; the moths did not turn from light to gray to dark in concert. The process of evolution can be summarized in three sentences: Genes mutate. [gene: a hereditary unit] Individuals are selected. Populations evolve.
Evolution can be divided into microevolution and macroevolution. The kind of evolution documented above is microevolution. Larger changes, such as when a new species is formed, are called macroevolution. Some biologists feel the mechanisms of macroevolution are different from those of microevolutionary change. Others think the distinction between the two is arbitrary -- macroevolution is cumulative microevolution.
The word evolution has a variety of meanings. The fact that all organisms are linked via descent to a common ancestor is often called evolution. The theory of how the first living organisms appeared is often called evolution. This should be called abiogenesis. And frequently, people use the word evolution when they really mean natural selection -- one of the many mechanisms of evolution.
Common Misconceptions about Evolution
Evolution can occur without morphological change; and morphological change can occur without evolution. Humans are larger now than in the recent past, a result of better diet and medicine. Phenotypic changes, like this, induced solely by changes in environment do not count as evolution because they are not heritable; in other words the change is not passed on to the organism's offspring. Phenotype is the morphological, physiological, biochemical, behavioral and other properties exhibited by a living organism. An organism's phenotype is determined by its genes and its environment. Most changes due to environment are fairly subtle, for example size differences. Large scale phenotypic changes are obviously due to genetic changes, and therefore are evolution.
Evolution is not progress. Populations simply adapt to their current surroundings. They do not necessarily become better in any absolute sense over time. A trait or strategy that is successful at one time may be unsuccessful at another. Paquin and Adams demonstrated this experimentally. They founded a yeast culture and maintained it for many generations. Occasionally, a mutation would arise that allowed its bearer to reproduce better than its contemporaries. These mutant strains would crowd out the formerly dominant strains. Samples of the most successful strains from the culture were taken at a variety of times. In later competition experiments, each strain would outcompete the immediately previously dominant type in a culture. However, some earlier isolates could outcompete strains that arose late in the experiment. Competitive ability of a strain was always better than its previous type, but competitiveness in a general sense was not increasing. Any organism's success depends on the behavior of its contemporaries. For most traits or behaviors there is likely no optimal design or strategy, only contingent ones. Evolution can be like a game of paper/scissors/rock.
Organisms are not passive targets of their environment. Each species modifies its own environment. At the least, organisms remove nutrients from and add waste to their surroundings. Often, waste products benefit other species. Animal dung is fertilizer for plants. Conversely, the oxygen we breathe is a waste product of plants. Species do not simply change to fit their environment; they modify their environment to suit them as well. Beavers build a dam to create a pond suitable to sustain them and raise young. Alternately, when the environment changes, species can migrate to suitable climes or seek out microenvironments to which they are adapted.
Evolution requires genetic variation. If there were no dark moths, the population could not have evolved from mostly light to mostly dark. In order for continuing evolution there must be mechanisms to increase or create genetic variation and mechanisms to decrease it. Mutation is a change in a gene. These changes are the source of new genetic variation. Natural selection operates on this variation.
Genetic variation has two components: allelic diversity and non- random associations of alleles. Alleles are different versions of the same gene. For example, humans can have A, B or O alleles that determine one aspect of their blood type. Most animals, including humans, are diploid -- they contain two alleles for every gene at every locus, one inherited from their mother and one inherited from their father. Locus is the location of a gene on a chromosome. Humans can be AA, AB, AO, BB, BO or OO at the blood group locus. If the two alleles at a locus are the same type (for instance two A alleles) the individual would be called homozygous. An individual with two different alleles at a locus (for example, an AB individual) is called heterozygous. At any locus there can be many different alleles in a population, more alleles than any single organism can possess. For example, no single human can have an A, B and an O allele.
Considerable variation is present in natural populations. At 45 percent of loci in plants there is more than one allele in the gene pool. [allele: alternate version of a gene (created by mutation)] Any given plant is likely to be heterozygous at about 15 percent of its loci. Levels of genetic variation in animals range from roughly 15% of loci having more than one allele (polymorphic) in birds, to over 50% of loci being polymorphic in insects. Mammals and reptiles are polymorphic at about 20% of their loci - - amphibians and fish are polymorphic at around 30% of their loci. In most populations, there are enough loci and enough different alleles that every individual, identical twins excepted, has a unique combination of alleles.
Linkage disequilibrium is a measure of association between alleles of two different genes. [allele: alternate version of a gene] If two alleles were found together in organisms more often than would be expected, the alleles are in linkage disequilibrium. If there two loci in an organism (A and B) and two alleles at each of these loci (A1, A2, B1 and B2) linkage disequilibrium (D) is calculated as D = f(A1B1) * f(A2B2) - f(A1B2) * f(A2B1) (where f(X) is the frequency of X in the population). [Loci (plural of locus): location of a gene on a chromosome] D varies between -1/4 and 1/4; the greater the deviation from zero, the greater the linkage. The sign is simply a consequence of how the alleles are numbered. Linkage disequilibrium can be the result of physical proximity of the genes. Or, it can be maintained by natural selection if some combinations of alleles work better as a team.
Natural selection maintains the linkage disequilibrium between color and pattern alleles in Papilio memnon. [linkage disequilibrium: association between alleles at different loci] In this moth species, there is a gene that determines wing morphology. One allele at this locus leads to a moth that has a tail; the other allele codes for a untailed moth. There is another gene that determines if the wing is brightly or darkly colored. There are thus four possible types of moths: brightly colored moths with and without tails, and dark moths with and without tails. All four can be produced when moths are brought into the lab and bred. However, only two of these types of moths are found in the wild: brightly colored moths with tails and darkly colored moths without tails. The non-random association is maintained by natural selection. Bright, tailed moths mimic the pattern of an unpalatable species. The dark morph is cryptic. The other two combinations are neither mimetic nor cryptic and are quickly eaten by birds.
Assortative mating causes a non-random distribution of alleles at a single locus. [locus: location of a gene on a chromosome] If there are two alleles (A and a) at a locus with frequencies p and q, the frequency of the three possible genotypes (AA, Aa and aa) will be p2, 2pq and q2, respectively. For example, if the frequency of A is 0.9 and the frequency of a is 0.1, the frequencies of AA, Aa and aa individuals are: 0.81, 0.18 and 0.01. This distribution is called the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.
Non-random mating results in a deviation from the Hardy-Weinberg distribution. Humans mate assortatively according to race; we are more likely to mate with someone of own race than another. In populations that mate this way, fewer heterozygotes are found than would be predicted under random mating. [heterozygote: an organism that has two different alleles at a locus] A decrease in heterozygotes can be the result of mate choice, or simply the result of population subdivision. Most organisms have a limited dispersal capability, so their mate will be chosen from the local population.
http://www.nsta.org/pbsevolution4
Another link.
More Evolution Q&A
Q. What is the most widely recognized ancestor to humans (Homo sapiens sapiens)? (Brandon, Fayetteville High School)
A. Humans came late to the evolutionary party. Life has been evolving for almost four million years now, and we humans (Homo sapiens) arose in our present form just 200,000 years ago. If we were to compress all of evolution into one day, we would appear at about 2 seconds before midnight! Another way to think of the evolutionary relatedness of all life is like a tree. There is a single trunk or stem that represents the common ancestor of all life 4 billion years ago. The various branches and smaller branchlets of the tree represent the continuous diversification of life as ancestral organisms give rise to related but different descendants.
The branch that gave rise to humans is called the hominid family. This family also contains at least four other groups of upright walkers that are closely related to humans but are now extinct. These now-extinct close cousins of ours have such funny names as Australopithecus, Paranthropus, Kenyanthropus, and Ardipithecus. We know of them from fossil skeletons that have been found in Africa. Perhaps the best known of these hominid cousins is Lucy. She was one of the Australopithecus group, and she lived about 3.4 million years ago, well before Homo sapiens appeared.
Six million years ago in east Africa, the hominid group as a whole branched off from the chimp-gorilla branch and went their separate evolutionary ways. One of the five lines of these hominids (we dont know exactly which one yet) eventually gave rise to us Homo sapiens 200,000 years ago. All of the other hominids went extinct for reasons that we still do not understand. Perhaps they were unable to adjust to changing climates, perhaps they were not as intelligent as Homo sapiens, or perhaps they succumbed to disease. We may never know for sure. Because all of these closer relatives are now gone, our closest living relative--the one we separated from 6 million years ago--is the chimp. We share 99% of our DNA with the chimp. If we could sequence the DNA of one of our extinct hominid cousins, we would find an even closer degree of genetic similarity.
I think this will give you the answer to apes and humans
Gonna give you more links you can chew on:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v20n2_mcintosh.asp
http://informationcentre.tripod.com/evolve4.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
"When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled."
- Charles Darwin
The Origin of Species, p. 647
EDIT1:spelling errors
EDIT2:more spelling errors
this post is 15,000 chars long after i had to shorten it from 18,000!
I rest my case
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