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Unless you didn't go to any school of any kind I don't see how you coulda not learn about evolution.

I wasn't taught Evolution is school, but I went to school in Texas..

Wel that sucks

Some of my best friends on Campus are uber religious, it doesn't stop us from having a good discussion though. None of that "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" closed mind crap.


If someone went to catholic school, was homeschooled by very christian parents, or went to school in the south chances are Evolution was taboo; case in point, I was taught Evolution by my Dad in 9th grade, catholic school wouldn't teach it so he did himself.

2/3. Ha.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the general concept of evolution. And I agree with things like generational evolution, ie: Changes in skin color and what not. But as far has humans being related to chimps, that's where you lose me.

Chimps branched off from the human ancestry. We both had a common ancestor. At one point one population of them evolved into chimps and the other became more recent ancestors of humans (who then kept branching off into new species such as the neanderthals and us).
You do know we are all related to bacteria right? That's what we all looked like 2 billion years ago.

Oh okay. How do we know this/where is the evidence of this happening?

Eww, bacteria's nasty. = p

seriously, what's with ppl trying to prove "I am right, you are wrong"? Believe whatever you want. It's not like without believing in God or evolution you can't go to work or can't eat smt to survive...
Believer or non believer can together live in peace as long as they don't bash each other or affect other's life.

Well every organism, that has DNA for genetic information, has some small similarity in their DNA. Chimps being the most similar to us(of the species that are still living today). Chimps are mammals, so are we. They use tools, so do we. We evolved to use more complex tools, or rather we evolved better brains to better make and use more complex tools.
If there is some degree of similarity between species, there is a high probability that they both had the same ancestor.

Does this mean that Chimps could evolve at some time in the far future to be what we are today? Or are they stuck where their at? And why did we evolve and they didn't?

Not really sure how sound the logic is in the last sentence. But whatever.

Possibly. It would take thousands of generations though.
We evolved because having more brainpower worked for us. Chimps may not have needed the extra brainpower where they lived, so they never evolved it.

your questions are answered by natural selection. which is basically the cornerstone of evolution. Basically, the environment influences certain genes to continue to be duplicated. For example, if white and black bugs of the same species lived in the forest and white bugs are easily seen by predators (and then eaten), there is more of a chance that the black bugs will survive and reproduce, increasing the chance of more black bugs in the future. So after tons of generations, you'll see that there are hardly any white bugs left, and the black bugs have evolved to adapt to survive.

as for evidence of evolution, theres thousands of papers on the subject, if your interested go read up on them. One basic evidence is that every single thing on this planet shares the same DNA, generally same proteins, which obviously means that every single living thing at one point long ago came from a common ancestor. The evidence for evolution is there, its just that religious folks and ignorants shut it out cause they refuse to acknowledge it.

Again you show a lack of understanding of evolution. I can see you're trying to learn but without the basics you're just asking questions without any comprehension of the meaning of their answers. I'll answer them anyway so you can't say you weren't given one but knowledge without comprehension is wasted knowledge. Until you understand what evolution is answering these questions is more like talking to a wall than having an actual discussion, no offense.

Just because fish share common a common ancestor doesn't mean that eventually they will all evolve into trout. The same goes for chimps. We are not the apex of primate evolution we are merely one of the many paths primate evolution was capable of taking. This does not mean that all primates will eventually evolve into Homo Sapiens. They could evolve into many things depending on climate, resources, and random mutations. Evolution does not necessarily mean a growth of intelligence nor is intelligence the sign of a highly evolved species.

To answer the next question chimps are not stuck in the evolution processes. They certainly aren't being helped along buy us hunting them to extinction and destroying their habitat but they are still evolving, all things are. The genetic make up of people is constantly changing from generation to generation. Each time a new child is born they have within them the chance to start their offspring down a different path than the rest of us. That is how random and subtle evolution is. What may start as a tumorous growth of extra bones may after millions of years evolve into some type of organic armor plating. It is impossible to predict the path of a certain mutation and what the outcome will be but its easy to see it in the past using fossil records. You can see the subtle changes that took place in a species over millions of years. Turtle shells are the result of a mutation that caused their bones to extend eventually over millions of years this mutated into a top shell and after millions of more years it mutated into a bottom one as well. I know im saying years but think of it in terms of generations, think how many generations of turtles were spawned the course of tens of millions of years, each birth was an opportunity for mutation/evolution. So evolution is a slow processes but a constant one.

And for your last question, it is irrelevant if you are looking for some deep meaning and showcases your ignorance of evolution more than any other question because the answer is simply, evolution. Mutations are random, there is no special reason why we turned out the way we did. Millions of years ago one of our ancestors mutations was successful enough that it didn't kill them. Maybe it helped them along but it was probably too subtle to make a noticeable impact. That ancestor reproduced and its offspring were successful enough that that genetic mutation caught on and over millions of years and changes in diet, climate, and location we evolved into what we are today. The ancestors of Chimps continued its path of evolution into the modern chimp. Its not like chimps haven't evolved at all over the past millions of years, what you see today is what they've evolved into. That is all there is to it.

Here are some videos with a few examples of the thousands of bits of evidence for evolution.

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Extremely simple basics:

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Just found this pic..had to post it.

I have a serious question. what's the point of discussing religion on srf?

Entertainment?

Oh and I'll be discussing evolution with my biology teacher here in a few days, can't wait. = )

What's the point of discussing anything on a forum?


I hope it's not a watered down form, or, evolution is a theory to explain how stuff evolves. Next topic. I think that's what I got in school...if anything. Actually, I don't think it was even mentioned.

Well we'll just be emailing each other back and forth, so hopefully it won't be...ehh..."watered down"....; )

Ah sweet. I wish I was taught the theory more in-depth in school. I've had to do all the research and reading on my own, madness!

Am I the only one that had to revisit the first post to remember what this thread was originally about? :/

Nope, I remmember ;D. I havn't been posting because I don't want to make myself seem like a fool infront of intellectuals. I have very little knowledge about the theory of evolution,etc.

didn't you take AP bio in high school or biology in college? Evolution was the first thing that appeared on the first page of my textbook.

No worries, I've already embarrassed my self in the category. Ha.

I took AP Biology and Dual Credit anatomy and Physiology... we barely touched on evolution. Must be a Texas thing? I honestly don't know. Had I been more interested in Biology and evolution earlier in my college career I would have taken a true college biology class and not the dual credit high school equivalent. I wasn't required to take a biology course for my major (computer sci), because Dual credit A&P counted as a credit.

If I wasn't almost done with my degree I'd take a bio class just for fun.

That's too broad, I'm talking about religion only. It's been discussed many times on these forums. I've noticed that more than half the time it's been discussed the same answers are always given out with the same endless arguments. I just searched the word religion on these forums and was surprised with the results. On another note, the conclusion will always be the same no matter which side we're on. Anyways, I'm just curious on why is this the most talked about topic here on srf. This has been discussed here for more than 3 or 4 years now.

P.S: No I'm not religious, and I don't follow any religion. I do believe in a higher creator though.

Well then I'm going to have to use Tasdik's reply, entertainment. It's fun to see both sides of the discussion and then argue from there. IDK, arguing is fun? If we didn't have religion to argue about and run circles around, what would we do!?!?!11

Oh okay.

qft.

Religion thread bump!

Interesting.. I wonder why..
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