What is your evidence for not believing in evolution?

:: Breaks out popcorn ::

I’m in the middle of reading Richard Dawkins’ “The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for Evolution”

This is gonna be fun.

@Seek_Kolinahr You can also read a very basic Anthropology book :D

I have absolutely no problem accepting evolution, but surely that’s not the definition to which people object. Everyone accepts that there is change over time; not everyone accepts that biological evolution—that is, change over time in one or more inherited traits found in populations of individuals—can explain the diversity of species and the capacities of humans. I believe they are incorrect, but let’s not embarrass ourselves at the start by attacking straw men.

True, but I just love Dawkins. This week I’ve got Greatest Show, The Selfish Gene, and The Ancestor’s Tale. Even his random tangents are full of fascinating information the Florida school system left out when portraying evolution as “just a theory”. ^_^

You might be asking the wrong group of people.

Fairies.~

Any idiot knows god just put fossils in the ground to display His ominiscent power.

I think most normal people, religious and atheist, accept evolution. The main difference is that some religious people claim god started the process (as well as the entire universe, obviously).

I still have a hard time believing the number of people I know that actually believe the Devil stacked the fossil record during Noah’s Flood. They also claim that carbon and potassium dating is a lie developed by anti-Bible scientists.

@Blackberry Fossils in the ground?! That’s crazy!!! Everyone knows that the earth is hollow! There’s no place for the fossils to go! Stop participating in the scientific conspiracy to cover up the truth about subterranean civilizations! ~

Sorry. I’m from Kansas. Evolution is illegal here.
Moving on.

As for me, I believe that the beginning was [redacted]

I hate it when that happens! Kansas sucks sometimes!

Planet of the Apes. Lol.

If humans evolved from apes, why aren’t we seeing any apes changing now? And who can explain the “jump” from something as primitive as an ape to something as “evolved” as a human being? There had to be a “jump” somewhere——a slow and lengthy evolution didn’t cause this radical difference. I think alien involvement from a different planet or galaxy played a role, or the involvement from a higher power.

We are seeing apes changing now. Just as we are seeing humans changing now. Everything is changing all the time.

A lengthy evolution caused chihuahuas to develop as progeny of wolves. No aliens or deities needed.

I don’t know about that. The last time I saw Bubbles the Chimp back in 1987, he still looked the same as his brother at the zoo. lol

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2993226.jpg.jpg

http://www.pcpimages.com/Nature-and-Wildlife/Apes/Chimps-1-of-1/523141946_7ojvF-L-2.jpg

Clearly.

While I do not have the time, space, or inclination to explain the whole of the concept of natural, artificial, and sexual selection, I will say that it’s absurd to posit that evolution doesn’t exist because a chimp you glanced at 25 years ago resembles a chimp you saw last week.

Let’s just say your source and method of analysis both leave something to be desired.

@Seek_Kolinahr Where’s your sense of humor? Omg.

No, let’s just say your sense of “humor”, or lack of it, leaves something to be desired!

I’m unfollowing this. lol. Goodbye.

Aw, come on. At least pretend to make an argument. It’s the arguing that’s fun.

…damn.

@MRSHINYSHOES… “I think alien involvement from a different planet or galaxy played a role”

(or WE are the aliens)..

I look at some of the people around me and come to the conclusion that many of the people around me are a step below chimpanzees.

Now Devolution… I have no trouble believing in that.

Okay, I wrote quite an essay and then chrome crashed on me. I decided I would write a summary again of what I wrote and to prevent me from suddenly losing everything, I was highlighting the summary and copying it in case the browser crashed again. Then the computer undergoes a system error and shuts down on me, once again losing everything I wrote. I think life does not want me participating in this topic.

As a super brief summary now, I believe that evolution exists- time and various factors do contribute to the change of species. On the other hand, I believe that the idea of human beings being the descendants of chimpanzees to be complete and utter crap. The jump is simply too dramatic- If there were talking dolphins or seafolk, or any other kind of intelligent creatures similar to humans walking the planet, then I would have to believe evolution. Aside from all the beautiful evidence that the evolution theory can present, it cannot explain why humans are the only ones to have evolved so much, because aside from chimpanzees, there are many other ‘just as smart’ creatures on this planet.

Chimpanzees may have been forced to adapt to change along the course of time, but if they started thinking so damn much, their heads are more likely to explode (or overheat and crash like computers do) than to stand up and start thinking calculus.

Think about computers because they are as close to humans as anything on this planet. Computers, extremely intelligent, can do amazing things, but their CPU/processor can’t be suddenly upgraded by nature- they can do as many things as their processor can allow them. In ten million years, the same exact computer may do new things, but it would still have the same processor, thus limiting them. Chimpanzees and the animals on this Earth have the same ‘processor’ as they did since they came into existence. Humans may have started with sticks and stones, but with time we learned to use our potential, and it is not that any of our ‘hardware’ evolved by itself.

Anyway, spare me with the all the evolution facts since I’ve seen them all. They are convincing, but if we were to believe everything that is written on books, the Nazis would be the rulers of the world this day, and we would be their inferior slaves.

@robdamel Humans didn’t evolve from chimpanzees. They both evolved from a common ancestor, and they both had many steps from that common ancestor to their current form.

And it’s hardly a “dramatic” change. In the last 10,000 years Homo-sapiens evolved from their fore-bearers (neanderthal, cro-magnun, etc). The extreme differences between humans and those immediate ancestors are remarkably dramatic (brain size, muscle mass, intelligence, body hair, etc), and that was just 10,000 years. Now give yourself hundreds of millions of years to make the jump from that common ancestor to today.

I don’t think there is a big enough crowd of non-evolution-believers on fluther to really have this debate.

A better debate question might have been, do you think evolution might simply be gods method for creating man?

I’m surprised at @MRSHINYSHOES….I can’t believe he’d throw in A) We evolved from chimps. We didn’t. We had a common ancestor somewhere along the way and B) one would expect to see evolutionary changes within a human life span. It is possible in a few miniscule circumstances….Galapagos Islands comes to mind. But in most cases, especially in higher species, evolution happens over millions and millions and millions of years. He knows that…doesn’t he?

@Seek_Kolinahr Actually, the evolution of all domesticated dogs happened very, very quickly, relatively speaking, due to human intervention when ever we decided to step in. We can create a new “breed” in a few generations…in many cases, easily within the span of a human life cycle. Chihuahua dogs have only been around about 1000 years or so.
I have a white German Shepherd… her line only goes back to the late 19th, early 20th century. She can be traced to just one dog! That’s cool. : )

@Dutchess_III

Of course you’re right. The comparison of artificially selected wolf to dog (which likely began with the naturally selected wolf to scavenging village dog before being taken over by domestication) is usually a helpful descriptor to people who claim great physical changes cannot happen through evolution.

Right on @Seek_Kolinahr! I’ve always thought it would be cool to figure out how to breed a type of, say, polka dotted cat! But…that wouldn’t be a nice way to treat all the hundreds of cats you’d end up with!

@robdamel, the basis of your argument seems to be emotional. Regardless of evidence (and you weren’t aware of the correct phylogeny to begin with!), you just can’t persnoally believe that humans could have come from apelike ancestors, because humans are so smart and apes just aren’t capable of humanlike qualities.

So, I would urge you to watch this video from David Attenborough’s “The Life of Mammals.” It shows orangutans using tools—not because they’re trained, but just for the hell of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFACrIx5SZ0

Orangs of course aren’t the only apes that use tools. Chimps widely use tools. What’s more, specific groups of chimps have specific cultures. They use tools in certain ways, and they teach these ways to their kids, and the culture of tool use changes over time.

Also, you said that animal CPU’s (our brains or hardware) don’t change over millions of years. Um, yes they do. That’s the whole point of evolution. And you should ask yourself exactly how much a chimpanzee-like brain needs to change in order to be capable of things like human language. The answer is “not very much.”

…

I am also completely confused as to why you brought up Nazis.

David Attenborough rocks!

I wonder if speech in chimps is stalled out more by the structure of their mouths, tongues and vocal chords, rather than a physical inabilitity in the brain…but that’s just a thought.

@Dutchess_III, lack of physical vocalization structures is definitely a huge part of it, brain aside. In fact, scientists think that our old cousins—the Neandertals—did not have good enough vocal chords for complex language-sounds… and this could be part of the reason why our ancestors, the Cro-Magnons, outcompeted them.

Could also be why chimps are capable of understanding and using sign language.

Talk will rule the world! We just take it for granted, but to think deeply about it…the ability to communicate so subtly in hundreds of thousands of different ways…it’s mind boggling to realize we have that ability…and to think about how that one “simple” ability really did change the world.

I’m amazed that the place ain’t run by women! Heh heh!

Yes @Seek_Kolinahr. That’s a fascinating study too…

It was run by women, until patriarchal religion got in the way.

That the process of evolution occurs is pretty well accepted. The main thing some people have trouble accepting is that humans are a result of evolution. They can’t accept that we are animals too. For the record, I am not one of them.

@Seek_Kolinahr IDK…I really think that, in the end, it doesn’t come down to who is the most intelligent or the most capable. When you have a man and a woman whose abilities are somewhat comparable, even if the woman is actually MORE capable, the person who can cause the most physical harm wins. That’s kind of a law of nature and those men who are assholes…..so too often we have to do intellectual end runs to continue ruling the world so that all the shit works right.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall during a private discussion between Obama and Mrs.!

@Mariah Wait! Wait!....you mean…we’re animals? Like horses and dogs? (JK) My granddaughter, 7, asked not long ago, “Gramma….ALL the animals have two arms and two legs and two ears and two eyes…why don’t they all look the same?” Wow…how to answer that!

I would too, but only if I could also observe Bill and Hilary. Y’know, for a legitimate scientific comparison… or something. ^_^

It would just be hilarious.

I’d offer to observe Georgie Dub and Wifey, but frankly if I never hear that voice again it’ll be too soon.

OMG! I bet Hilary just wiped the floor with him and his cigar, you know?! It would be funny!

George and Wifey…I’m trying to imagine a conversation between them…
Wifey “Now George. You’ve been drinking and you’re really not in a position to make the decision to nuke Kansas.”
George “I’m a MAN not a WIMP an (illegible) prove it!!! Wanna see my [redacted] It’s either you (illegible) or I wip Kan,sus off the mapf!”
So she gets him another drink.

In contrast…Oh, there is some brain power in the room when Mr & Mrs. Obama are together alone, discussing something truly important!

Oh, I love Michele Obama. She’s my favourite first lady since Eleanor, I think.

Yep! Michele is my hero. But I don’t remember Eleanor. : )
A while back my 5 year old grandson asked, “Hey! Did you realize that the dinosaurs went extinct!?” It was like…“Damn! You’re right! I haven’t seen one in quite a while! : )

Ha ha… I don’t remember Eleanor, either (I’m 25), but she’s an incredible historical figure. I think it’s going to break my heart when I have to explain to my now 3 year old son that dragons don’t actually exist.

Ah! Don’t! He’ll figure it out! Going to PM…