[X] My Assistant

[Hisashi Shoutai]

weeeeee.. I was looking for a topic to start a thread... =D

Now, Evolution Theory or God?
wich do u believe in?

I wanna See some opinions before I post mine,so I can see the level of the discussion... =]

LETS START DEBATING!!!

[Marquis de Lafay...]

God.

I do believe in the Big-Bang theory, but then God created everything on the Earth, and such, within the Seven Days. The evolution idea seems crazy to me. I just don't understand how, even though it's over a million or two years, how a fish could evolve into a human. Nope, doesn't make sense.

[Sarge]

God.

I do believe in the Big-Bang theory, but then God created everything on the Earth, and such, within the Seven Days. The evolution idea seems crazy to me. I just don't understand how, even though it's over a million or two years, how a fish could evolve into a human. Nope, doesn't make sense.

Hearing your point of view... I can see that you'd be very difficult to convince to my point of view, so I'll give a simple example that may or may not make sense to you. If it does, I win another internet. If it doesn't, eh, I tried. This example will show how an evolutionary trait can persist over hundreds of billions of generations and transmit from one species to another over time.

Keep in mind: we are dealing with VERY BIG TIME SCALES. To give you an idea of just how long evolution takes, google "puppy" and look at the number of search results on the right hand side of your screen. It should take less than a second for your computer to come up with that number. Now, imagine that you got the same number of results, but google took one year to count each result. That's ALMOST the kind of time scale you're dealing with for evolution from one species into another.

Onto my example...

....

....

Lizards have five fingers.

Several hundred million years ago, reptiles branched off into different groups. One of these groups traded scales for fur. Many of them kept the five fingered system. Look at a rodent like a raccoon or a rat. It also has five fingers.

Some species of mammels would eventually evolve with hooves. They evovled hooves because this adaptation made them better suited to their enviorment (hooves are good if you live in a grassland enviorment, but bad if you live in trees, which is why tree climbing mammals generally have five fingers).

After the extinction of the dinosaurs, one group of mammals branched off into primates. They also kept their five fingers. One species of primate, the chimpanzee, also branched off into another species. This species walked on two legs and would eventually come to roam the plains of Africa. This species would also branch off into many other species. Two examples include homosapians and neanderthals, which are actually seperate but closely related species, cousins if you will, although the neanderthal went extinct due to competition with homosapians (modern humans) and climate change.

But for both species, the five fingered system was useful. It allowed them to grip objects and use them for weapons. Natural selection allowed humans with more nimble fingers to create better weapons, which allowed them to have more children (because they could provide more meat). This allowed the trait to be passed on.

Modern humans have five fingers.

Now you know why.




You might also ask: Why did the lizard have five fingers to begin with? I don't know the answer to this question, but my assumption is that as fish evolved to walk on land having hooks (clawed fingers) on their feet would have helped them crawl onto shore more efficently than creatures with flippers.

This post has been edited by Sarge: Apr 29 2009, 12:57 AM