Then start actually reading...



Yet another person looking at it backwards. Instead of saying "x is the reason why life exists as it does today", you're saying "because life exists the way it does now, the cause must be x".

Got it? Still don't? Ok, here's an example:

People can move objects with their minds. How do I know this is true? Because there are videos of psiwheels spinning. Why else would they spin?




Oh God. This right here shows you have not read my posts. I'm not trying to poke holes in anything. If it seems that way, it's most likely just a byproduct of the things I'm asking.


And here's a recap just to show you that I understand what you're talking about. What you're saying is simple: According to you, billions of years is long enough for life to evolved as much as it has today.

Why? Because not all species take extremely long periods of time to evolve. Not only that, but once species have doubled, trippled, quadrupled, etc.. the emergance of new species rapidly grows and grows. One turns into two, two becomes 4, etc, etc... And according to you, the setbacks that I pointed out aren't enough to have any significant affect on the growth of evolution.


Now, what I'm saying is this: There are so many of these variables at play, it would be extremely hard to make any estimates.

Ah, but see there's the thing Zero. You're not supposed to ask. Just accept blindly. I think it's funny that the thing people hate the most about organized religion... the "all-knowing" priests in their high towers handing the truth down to the ignorant masses is exactly what the evolutionists scientists are now doing. Have you noticed how in every other branch of science asking questions is encouraged, doubting is expected, but not when it comes to evolution, no, then you're just supposed to believe what you are told and not make waves.

I never thought I'd agree with you when it came to this subject. But I'm actually starting to feel this way. I came here, saying nothing about religion, just asking a few questions, and here I am being accused of trying to disprove evolution or "poke holes" in some theory. Starting to sound like fundamentalists.

You're looking at it wrong.

Just kidding, I couldn't resist.

So, even though this is the Spirituality vs Skepticism forum, the topic warrants a small dose of ET speculation.

Let's say that Noah's ark had a small fraction of truth to it, and that there was a mass genocide somewhere in the universe. Perhaps the creatures of this earth, including humans, are the collective sum of MANY worlds. Think of it like a zoo. In order to preserve species that are threatened with extinction, we raise them in a zoo until we deem they are ready to repopulate the great outdoors again.

Oh, you're absolutely right because that's what I do all the time.

You know, you're absolutely freaking right about every freaking thing because the damned evidence means nothing. I'm just telling you to believe it blindly. God forbid I ask you to look at the evidence before you start theorizing on something you don't seem to know about. God forbid that the evidence that exists in the fossil record and the evidence that exists in the diversity of life be actually used as evidence. It's all just pinwheels.

You asked why, people answered, you ignored it. Even before I posted my little comment on what "only" a few billion years means in perspective. And over and over again, I suggest that maybe you might want to go study this for yourself. I'm sorry if by asking you to study a science discipline I actually asked you to take everything I said on faith. Because that's what we atheist evolution scientists do, right? We're not really asking you to examine the evidence yourselves, we're just asking you to take it all on faith.



How are you not poking holes? You're saying that there are so many factors involved that it's highly suspicious that it could happen in "only" a few billion years. Would you like ten billion? Twenty? A hundred? Tell me, what time period wouldn't it be odd for you? And again, tell me why it's odd. Show me actual evidence that you've gathered that says it's odd.

And ironically, the only odd thing about life on earth is that it arose as soon as the conditions were right for life to arise and some of the weird turns it took. How life evolved is not the odd part.

Just so you know (because I'm not sure you do), evolution is the change in the heritable traits of a population over successive generations, as determined by shifts in the allele frequencies of genes.



At the risk of making pinwheels move by the power of my mind again, I'd again like to point out that because life has existed and does exist in the diversity it does, is evidence that 3.3 billion years was enough time. It's not like we can hop aboard the Enterprise and look at other planets or jump in the Tardis and go watch amino acids swim around. What we have is the history of the earth, the fossil record, the geologic record, life on earth today, and our own experiments and observations. To say it's merely pinwheels is just plain stupid because that's throwing out everything.



I never said they don't have significant effect on the growth of evolution. That's just stupid. What I said is despite the setbacks (and there's been many extinction events) obviously there was enough time for life to arise and evolve over and over. Remember, evolution is the change in the heritable traits of a population over successive generations, as determined by shifts in the allele frequencies of genes. That's really all it is. Nothing big and grand with movie-like effects. Just shifts in the allele frequencies of genes, which can be everything from coloring lightening to a completely new species arising.



So you're saying that we're so dumb that we can't make approximations on the wealth of knowledge we have? So all those observations, experimentations, and the fossil record might as well be thrown out because we can't possibly make an estimate after all this time of studying it?

Here's a starting point: Evolution is the change in the heritable traits of a population over successive generations, as determined by shifts in the allele frequencies of genes. Learn that, look at the fossil record and the geologic history of the earth, and then you'll have a beginning of an understanding. Because until then, you really aren't saying anything.



Again, no one's doing anything of the sort. I'm so freaking sorry that I suggested someone who has demonstrated no knowledge of evolutionary science to look at the evidence before saying something like "gee, there doesn't seem to be enough time for life to have evolved in only a few billion years." (paraphrased)

God forbid I ask you to look at the evidence and study the discipline further before you make claims. All it really means is that I want everyone to follow it blindly and not make waves. Because that's what aaaaaaaaall scientists do. They would never ask people to look at it for themselves.

If anything, a scientist's sin is assuming someone is smart enough and curious enough to want to examine the evidence offered themselves. Sadly, we get accused of telling people to blindly follow the faith. I'm surprised at you, IamsSon. I thought you were above petty mischaracterization of and entire group of people.

Next time someone says something ridiculous about a subject they know nothing about, remind me to stay out of it. Otherwise I'll just end up being accused of making pinwheels move with my mind, trying to force people to believe what I say because I said so, and other things they're projecting onto me based on their own prejudices.

But if someone wants to do the responsible thing and actually know what they're talking about before they start randomly saying things, then I'll be more than happy to discuss it.

I didn't deny any evidence. After reading this one sentenc. You're only here to complain and grumble.

I already stated what you thought, and then I stated my opinion. I said nothing that ignores any evidence. I not once called evolution wrong, I never said it's not happening now, and I never once said it did not create what we see today.I SIMPLY stated that I found it odd and interesting how so many species exist today. Then some people cleared up a few of my questions, so I then asked other questions. Then here comes you, starting all kind of Drama. CHILL OUT!




God, here we go again. You missed the point yet AGAIN. I'm talking about many, many, many variables, both known, unknown and poorly understood. And note: I'm not saying you're wrong, or that all of the things you listed mean nothing(Fossil Record, etc), because without it, we'd know nothing about evolution. Everytime I post, you twist it up to make it look like I mean something that I don't. I'm not even going to worry about you anymore.

I wasn't trying to prove it was odd. I was stating WHY I THOUGHT IT WAS ODD so that people could answer my questions, that way I'd learn more about evolution and be able to understand it better. I question EVERYTHING, even the way gravity works. I learn by questioning. Yet you come along acting as if I'm trying to disprove something. Which just shows that you do not understand the damn context of my posts.

Also, if you go back and read, you'll see that the first person to answer some of my questions correctly, was the first person I did not reply to. Which was because I understood him. Then you come here telling me I ignored everyone...


I had to rephrase my questions more than once for people to know what I was asking. Your posts don't even make any sense. You come here telling me I ignored you when you answered me, but I never made any objections to your posts other than that about your attitude.

If your question was answered, why did you again state that it was odd that so much diversity and life arose in "only a few billion" years? I admit, I shouldn't have responded by laughing that someone thinks a few billion years is a short amount of time (I'm used to people thinking 100 years is a long time), no matter what my out loud reaction to reading that was, but from what I had read in the thread (and yes, I read it over and over and over so you don't have to keep pointing out that I didn't read it) your question about whether or not a mere few billion years was enough for life to arise was already answered and you just ignored the answers and brought it up again.

So sorry if I "started drama," but I am f*#@$! sick and tired of people who know nothing of evolution showing up, making some random claim about evolution, and then dismissing everything that everyone else says. Alternately, I'm tired of people who know nothing of evolution wandering in, posting some ridiculous "evidence" about why it's false, then dismissing everything that everyone else says. And in both cases, the initial poster preens and claims that we're the ones making them try to "believe" in something on "blind faith" or that we're not being "open-minded to new possibilities." Scientists are, by nature, open to all possibilities. If the evidence doesn't fit the theory, time for a new theory.

But I'm tired of seeing the exact same thing over and over and over again, in this forum as well as all others. And despite the wealth of evidence out there, people just can't seem to be bothered to do so much as crack a book open.

So no, it's not odd to me that it happened in the very large amount of time life's been on earth. Maybe that's just because I've been studying it the past ten years or maybe it's just not that odd. What is odd though, is that life arose as soon as conditions were right for life to arise. But again, not that odd considering how fast plants can worm their way into concrete.

They answered SOME of my questions. The questions and comments I made about all of the variables at play was never actually replied to much, besides others giving their opinion and saying "I don't think that would have much of an affect"(Paraphrasing).

And the only reason this time line does not seem "huge" to me, is because SOME species do take a pretty long time to evolve, then there are extinctions, climate changes, etc... that can all come into play one way or the other which *seems* like it could make the growth of evolution "not so steady". It didn't seem like it would have a "constant growth rate" to me because so many variables are at play. But some of my questions were cleared up.

Like I said, from what I read it appeared as if you just asked the same thing over again after it had already been answered. And perhaps to the person who answered your questions, you should have made an acknowledgement, especially if that person had helped you. It also would have been more obvious to the rest of us who can't read your mind, that the post did indeed answer your questions, because otherwise, it looks like you ignored it.

But you made it out as if I objected to it. Don't you think if I disagreed with the answers, I'd have posted?

Not really. I've noticed that people tend to ignore the answers if they don't follow the person's theory. Sort of a fingers-in-the-ear-singing-la-la-la kind of thing. That's definitely how it got in the moon landing hoax thread. Someone would post bad physics that "proves" men couldn't go to the moon. A physicist would respond with corrections and/or point out the flaws in the other person's post. Then the first person would ignore it completely and post the same thing as before, only reworded.

Zero,

I don't know if I've understood you correctly, but part of your question is 'Why are there so many species?', please correct me if this is wrong.

This is because most organisms are specialists in that they occupy a very narrow ecological niche. Having more species that would be generalists (such as ourselves) means speciation wouldn't have occurred so frequently as the resources available to be taken advantage of wouldn't exist (or would already be used).

Being specialists means a lot more different species can evolve to use the huge variety of environmental resources available in the many different habitats. This does leave those species more exposed to extinction however, as a specialist species is very tied to the narrow ecological niche they occupy.

Not every animal evolves the same. Yes, it can take a VERY long time to adapt/mutate, or whatever the change may be. You have to keep in mind all the natural catastrophies such as ice ages, sever meteor impacts, etc. really affected the progression of evolution. In some instances it accelerated it, others it slowed down, because no change was needed. Considering that earth is supposedley 4.5 billion years old, I think that's more than ample opportunity for these gaps, also considering the nature of the young earth adaptability would've been absolutely essential. Sometimes intermediate species didn't last long, sometimes they did, so the years involved fluactuated with every species/subspecies. Said species weren't necessarily in constant evolution, for the most part miniscule if any changes took place in between speciation. By that I mean, the evolution remained sort of dormant, because the environment didn't require a biological adaptation for survival. I don't know if I made any sense at all...haha but it was fun, evolutionary science is very interesting, and entails so much information.

thats wright, you have to remember the time scale of which it has been around for....its a very long time to evolve and adapt, and as was already stated it can happen in just a few generation when a mutation occurs in the genetic code from its environment this in turn is natural selection and plays on 50-50.

I actually cannot believe I'm reading this.

We know its enough time, BECAUSE ITS HAPPENED.

We are where we are - we have found fossils of ancient animals, and the links between them and other types of species. It is well documented that there are links between dinosaur-type lizards and feathered birds:

"Birds evolved from and are phylogenetically recognized as members of the theropod dinosaurs"

Ref: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displ...ine&aid=669

Even today, in remote islands, there is evidence of evolution happening and new species emerging. Thats happening now. Right now. And it only takes a few generations. Indeed, many insects can mutant with a few generations and evolve to be immune to human pesticides. This is evolution in progress.

If you think that "taking hundreds of thousands of years for each new successful species" is a long time, then you have a lot to learn about the earth and its history. If you're having difficulty read this: http://newton.nap.edu/html/creationism/evidence.html before posting again.

Innit!! Does my nut in when people do that. If you're going to believe in something enough to post it in a public realm, have the argument and evidence to back it up, don't just run away cause people don't agree with you!

The fossil record is never as complete as we'd like it to be, but new things are always being found to "fill in the gaps". We can see the evolution of the horse from a rabbit-sized creature to the horses of today, but it has taken many millions of years. We see vestigial limbs in snakes and whales, indicating their ancestors once had them, but even in the time of dinosaurs, there were already fully formed, legless snakes as there are today. The times when we see the greatest "spurts" in evoution is after great extinctions, such as the KT event, with new organizations evolving to fill the empty niches. So we see dolphin-like ichthyosaurs replaced by dolphin-like dolphins filling the same ecological niche.

There are two schools of thought in Judaic and Christian Theology. The Genesis record either can be interpreted as the original creation record or what many believe to be the "Chaos" creation. Genesis 1:1 makes a statement then ends with a period. Verse 2 has a translational problem with it. The text literally reads in verse 2. "And the earth became with out form and void..." There is a huge difference from it being created that way, as opposed to becoming that way. Also there are many other records that indicate that there was a pre-Adamic race. One of which is also in Genesis, where God tells Adam and Eve to "replenish the earth". This would indicate it once was 'plenished'. Verse 2 of Genesis seems to be a broken planet being repaired rather than it being the original creation attributed in verse one. The wording in verse 2 also needs clarification. The words "without form and void" are "TOHU VA BOHU" in Hebrew this literally means a 'wasteland'. The meaning is that there is substance there but it is not habitable. So then it is a premise that verse one was the original creation eons ago and the following records in Genesis begin with the Earth being prepared to once again sustain life. The timeline between verse one and verse can be almost infinite. The "Chaos" ideaology accounts for the Earth being ancient. The "Original" idealogy has problems with it and is why many have dated the Earth to be a measely 6000 years old, which is nonsense.