Man and chimps, Darwin vs. God

[Guest noaxark]

I was talking to a friend the other day, and found out that she didn't believe that man and chimps share the same ancestor, or that man evolved from the animal kingdom at all (in other words, she, being christian, thought God created us). I was stunned, as up until then I couldn't really imagine that anyone who wasn't a bit of a fanatic would doubt our "monkey-like" origin. I was just as stunned when I realized I couldn't counter any of her arguments ("it's never really been proven" etc), as I've always thought of Darwin's theory as the absolute truth and I've never bothered to read or think twice about the subject.

 

So, in hopes of not being so embarrassingly uneducated in the future, I'm asking you now: Has it ever been unquestionably proven that man has evolved from another species?

[Sayonara]

Does it have to be unquestioningly good evidence, or just better than "but the bible says so"?

[Guest noaxark]

For me, basically anything is better than "the bible says so", but it isn't for her... so, yes, I guess it has to be real good evidence.

 

Edit:

Unquestionably (unquestioningly? Is that the correct way to say it?) might be too strong a word. I mean, if God were real he could forge the "proof" himself, being an almighty, uh, god and all

[LucidDreamer]

There is really excellent evidence actually, at least for the theory of evolution itself. The reason you were taken off guard is because Christians feel that their beliefs are besieged by the theory of evolution. They are given pre-made arguments specifically designed to discredit evolution, which works well because most people are not scientifically minded and because they don't want to believe in evolution. When it comes down to it there are basically two theories: evolution and creationism. Among these two theories, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution.

 

There are of course kinks in the theory of evolution, just as most theories have kinks. Creationist are also famous for taking every thing that science can't explain and trying to use that as evidence for creationism, yet they offer no viable alternative theory. It was done by magic just isn't a very good theory. But then again its hard to disprove magic.

Here is a site that will answer some of your questions. http://www.talkorigins.org/

[john5746]

I think more importantly is to tell the person that even if it could be proven, their religion would still have meaning, just as finding out that the earth revolves around the sun and that the earth isn't flat didn't end religion.

 

Creationism requires belief in a creator, science does not require the exclusion of one.

[Sorcerer]

I think more importantly is to tell the person that even if it could be proven' date=' their religion would still have meaning, just as finding out that the earth revolves around the sun and that the earth isn't flat didn't end religion.

 

Creationism requires belief in a creator, science does not require the exclusion of one.[/quote']

 

Right, even the pope agrees that the Big Bang theory and genesis aren't mutually exclusive.... it just needs to be carried that one step further.

 

Perhaps you could ask your friend this, if God is omniscient (all Knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful), why would he need to do things in "days", couldnt he just set the universe in motion, knowing that everything will turn out as it has. I'm agnostic, so I beleive in the possibility of a God, however any God that can exist cannot contradict evidence.

[Guest noaxark]

Perhaps you could ask your friend this, if God is omniscient (all Knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful), why would he need to do things in "days", couldnt he just set the universe in motion, knowing that everything will turn out as it has. I'm agnostic, so I beleive in the possibility of a God, however any God that can exist cannot contradict evidence.

 

Do you mean that if he truly was omniscient and omnipotent he should've just sort of created an incredibly advanced ball of matter, "programmed" to explode and form the universe the way he wanted it, instead of creating everything more slowly as he did (the famous seven days and all that)? Or do you mean that he should've gone even further and made sure that the humans that were eventually created would also behave just in the way he wanted them to?

 

I can't tell you why he'd take so much time making the world, the lord works in mysterious ways, as they say. Maybe creating worlds is more fun if you do it at a certain pace? Anyway, as to why he'd feel it was necessary to influence humans instead of pre-"program" them, I guess it could be because of some biblical definition of a human's mind, free will and soul; i.e. a human is pretty much unpredictable and un-programmable as her decisions are, just like God's, not dictated by the way her mass is assembled.

 

I hope that made sense and that I haven't misunderstood you. I kind of feel I'm way outta my league here, you know

[LucidDreamer]

The first thing you need to do to punch holes in her argument is to find out exactly what she believes. How old does she think the world and the universe are? Does she believe that other creature besides humans have evolved. Does she believe in micro-evolution but not macro evolution? Once you have established exactly what she believes you can begin to pick it apart until you uncover contradictions or absurdities in her argument. At the heart of every bad argument is a contradiction or absurdity. You should look up evolution threads on this forum and check out the site I listed as a starting point to answer the questions.

[dagaz]

I was talking to a friend the other day, and found out that she didn't believe that man and chimps share the same ancestor, or that man evolved from the animal kingdom at all (in other words, she, being christian, thought God created us).

 

Some good evidence for the evolution of humans is the different species of hominids in the fossil record: Home erectus, Australopithecus, etc.

 

Creationism requires belief in a creator, science does not require the exclusion of one.

This is beautiful in its simplicity.

[Skye]

I'm putting my money on the chimps, they are strong, agile and have a set of teeth on them.

[swansont]

So, in hopes of not being so embarrassingly uneducated in the future, I'm asking you now: Has it ever been unquestionably[/i'] proven that man has evolved from another species?

 

Nothing in science is "unquestionably proven." Science is inductive.

 

Evolution is as well-founded as gravity, yet few question whether you will fall down rather than up if you jump off a cliff. Yet all of physics, including gravity, is based on theory, and none of it is proven.

 

Evolution has been confirmed to the point where it is perverse to withold provisional assent (to paraphrase SJ Gould). Like all theories, one would have to re-evaluate it if new evidence were to come to light. But the weight of evidence already present gives one a great deal of confidence that the theory is correct. Changes to the theory would most likely be fine-tuning (much like General Relativity as compared to Newton's gravity - Newton works fine for most cases. It's more accurate to say it's incomplete rather than wrong)

[Sorcerer]

Do you mean that if he truly was omniscient and omnipotent he should've just sort of created an incredibly advanced ball of matter, "programmed" to explode and form the universe the way he wanted it, instead of creating everything more slowly as he did (the famous seven days and all that)?

 

Yes, you got it the first time.... so forget about the other part of your post

[Sorcerer]

Nothing in science is "unquestionably proven." Science is inductive.

 

Evolution is as well-founded as gravity' date=' yet few question whether you will fall down rather than up if you jump off a cliff. Yet all of physics, including gravity, is based on theory, and none of it is proven.[/quote']

 

What if the ground fell up to meet you?

[JHAQ]

I think the statement "beyond a reasonable doubt " as in criminal trials is persuasive .

[fuhrerkeebs]

What if the ground fell up to meet you?

 

What if it did? Doesn't change anything...in fact, SR says that for a none accelerating observer, no one can really claim that the ground was falling up to meet you.

[fuhrerkeebs]

Oh, and as to the original question...(I don't know if this has been said yet or not) but what about the fact that chimps 98 to 99.4 percent of their DNA common with humans.

[dagaz]

Evolution is as well-founded as gravity

 

No, gravity is a scientific law (Law of Universal Gravitation), whereas evolution is still just a scientific theory.

[Skye]

Oh, and as to the original question...(I don't know if this has been said yet or not) but what about the fact that chimps 98 to 99.4 percent of their DNA common with humans.

That's an overly simple answer to a deceptively complex question. We are closely related to chimps. But as you probably know, chimps have a different number of chromosomes, a different number of nucliotides and a different number of genes. So comparing our genomes isn't straightfoward. It's complicated by the way we have compared genomes in the past. This was done by finding genes that were identical in function, and then counting these as the same. People then used the numbers of these they found to extrapolate to give a figure of about how many genes we shared. This gives the high figures around 99%. But this ignores any differences in the genes, and of course any difference in the rest of our DNA.

 

This isn't to mention the fact that we are still figuring out our genome and have barely started on the chimps. So any figures should be taken as provisional estimates at this stage.

[fuhrerkeebs]

No, gravity is a scientific law (Law of Universal Gravitation), whereas evolution is still just a scientific theory.

 

Just because gravity is a law and evolution is a theory doesn't mean that they aren't equally well-founded. And as for gravity being a law, I suggest you pick up a copy of "Critique of Pure Reason". And you must also remember that the Law of Universal Gravitation is just a name, I can easily change it to the Theory of Gravity and it would be the same thing, just as I can change the name of the theory of evolution to the Law of Biological Evolution. It's the same thing. Your confusing notions and notations.

[AzurePhoenix]

is it really so much that evolution is unproven, as it is that the mechanisms that spur evolution are unproven? I mean, if you look at fossil records and genetic lines and such, it seems to me that anyone with brains would see that evolution is a historical fact. What we don't know is how it progresses, what started it up, etc, etc. The main point is, no matter how well we prove it, declare it fact and so on, even if we find the key to evolution and come up with a perfect and glorious understanding of it, some bible-pusher is going to guffaw and condemn the whole thing anyway. That's just how religion works. I mean, there are people out there who deny dinosaurs ever existed simply because they throw creationists' philosophy so far out of wack.

 

And also, this might sound wierd, this small time church in the area i used to live at took it upon itself to tell the younger kids that dinosaurs were remnants of demons and devils that fought beside lucifer in his war against god eons before adam and eve were cooked up.

 

I guess my overall point is, evolutionists should just give up arguing with creationists, and let them think what they will. otherwise, we're just wasting time bickering with blind zealots when we could be devoting our energies to figuring out what we really want to know, not what we want them to know.

They're never going to give up their petty ideals, so why waste energy trying to get them to.

[Crash]

I heard someone at a youth conference say "god may have just set things in motion so it looked like there was a big bang".

 

For evidence just look at what god was like and turned into....like he allowed in-breeding when he first created the world ("go forth an multiply" to adam and eve, how were they to do this without in breeding) there are heaps of contradictions i have found in the bible you just have to look for them....but basically there will always be people on either side of the fence...just more people on the right (evolution ) side..

 

BTW Go.Sorcerer .....another kiwi in the mix...YE-YAA

[Sayonara]

I heard someone at a youth conference say "god may have just set things in motion so it looked like there was a big bang".

To which anyone with the most basic grasp of scientific method replies "it doesn't matter whether God did it, or it just happened."

[atinymonkey]

And also' date=' this might sound wierd, this small time church in the area i used to live at took it upon itself to tell the younger kids that dinosaurs were remnants of demons and devils that fought beside lucifer in his war against god eons before adam and eve were cooked up.

[/quote']

 

Actually, I quite like that story. It's more interesting, anyhow.

[swansont]

No, gravity is a scientific law (Law of Universal Gravitation), whereas evolution is still just a scientific theory.

 

And it's this gross misconception and ignorance of science that one has to fight in this situation. Theories don't "grow up" to be laws. Scientific laws are fairly simple mathematical relationships that have been observed to hold. Nothing more.

 

Evolution will never be a law only because you can't jot down an equation that represents it, and not because of its validity (or possible lack thereof).

[swansont]

is it really so much that evolution is unproven, as it is that the mechanisms that spur evolution are unproven? I mean, if you look at fossil records and genetic lines and such, it seems to me that anyone with brains would see that evolution is a historical fact. What we don't know is how it progresses, what started it up, etc, etc.

 

Except that we do know (some of) the mechanisms. DNA, mutations, natural selection - these have all been observed. Speciation has been observed. Antievolutionists play a game of semantics, and also hold evolution to an unreasonably higher standard than some other branches of science. Intellectual dishonesty. Invariably, those that aren't lying overtly repeat the lies of others without checking.