May god bless you.
It takes more than one poorly written website riddled with inaccuracies to make a case against science, and it takes more than one completely accurate web page explaining evolution to do it in depth enough to give a skeptic a solid understanding that can stand up to ideological attacks steeped in misinformation. But that's just if you really want to understand how eveloution works. If your goal is to undermine if for the sake of dogma, then definitely don't waste your time reading that book (though I don't need to tell you that).
Modern technology has allowed humans to discover some aspects of the cell. What was thought to be a murky lump during the time of Darwin has been discovered to be an unimaginably complex system. In the cell, there are power stations, complex factories, a huge data bank (with data enough to fill a 900-volume encyclopedia), storage systems, advanced refineries, and complex transportation systems. As W. H. Thorpe commented, "The most elementary type of cell constitutes a 'mechanism' unimaginably more complex than any machine yet thought up, let alone constructed, by man." This states that on certain levels, life is complex. But, there is not a reason given as to why evolution can't lead to complexity. I agree, it's difficult for most to fathom, but so is the distance to the nearest galaxy. Honestly, these arguments don't scratch the surface of the wealth of knowledge that exists regarding the topic. I could say: "According to the Creationists...", and list some contradictions, but what I would say would be shallow, and probably quite ignorant. With all due respect, why not just leave it alone? Or, if your goal is to lead people to God, why not do it with empathy and scripture? Why try to disprove evolution? What is the purpose?According to evolutionists, the organic compounds evolved into the first true cells, which evolved into more complex cells, (some of which began photosynthesis and produced the oxygen and ozone present in the atmosphere).
My love for my lord Jesus Christ is strong but is not dependent upon evolution existing or not existing. I hope that this makes sense. I came to learn. May god bless you
The gaps in the human ancestral fossil record are somewhat exaggerated. There have been thousands (I believe nearly 10k now) individual Hominini fossils found. (These are apes that branched where one lead to chimpanzees, and the other branch to us) But not all of these are our ancestors. All but one Hominina branch (our branch) died out. So when a Hominini is uncovered, it isn't necessarily an ancestor of ours. It's also difficult work solving this puzzle, and scientists have debated as new evidence is uncovered. But, as the number of specimens has grown, we have been able to build a more sensible and consistent model of how these hominids related to one another, and which ones were part of our successful (so far) evolutionary path. Wikipedia has a pretty good diagram showing a general overview. If God wanted us to believe that we had ancestors that didn't look like us, and that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor, he did a very good job. It's an incredible story, really.
It is a bit mind-boggling to think that not only did we humans come from other apes, but that further back, we ALL came from much simpler organisms ("we" here meaning all animals!). It is a very hard thing to accept, but it is what the evidence is strongly pointing towards.
It's two different world views, one is static and explains everything while being mostly unintelligible and prescriptive, the other is willing to change in accordance with the evidence and strives to explain that which is not understood. We could go back and forth about creationism and natural selection but it would probably be to no avail. If you think people ran around with the dinosaurs or that fossils were put on the earth to test our faith then I don't really think we have any basis for conversation. This is basically the same discussion as weather the earth revolves around the sun in my eyes. btw, I know what the shepherd does to the lamb, I have always found it to be the creepiest of analogies but pretty descriptive of the mindset of many Christians.
The fossils that have been found show a picture of a world that has changed over the span of at least 3.5 million years. The first fossils are of very simple organisms and over time the creatures found become increasingly complex as multicellular life emerges. After multicellular life gets going there is an extensive record of the mix of various types of creatures changing overtime. Can you trace the divergence of anyone creature as it changes overtime perfectly? Not right now. People have only been digging up and analyzing fossils in a scientific manner for a very short period of mankind's history, but that which has been found is tells a pretty compelling story of constant change and innovation in response to the pressures of survival. I find this story much more compelling then a Deus Ex no evidence. Do you happen to recall when the God bothers told us all that the Sun revolved around the Earth? Don't drink the same cool aid twice. I certainly trust the process of scientific method more then the tenth grade research paper. In the end your hypothesis seems that it must be that because science has not explained any and all confusing evidence that evolution could be real people should discard the development and testing of this theory through scientific method and accept that God just did it, despite the fact that you have no evidential evidence of Gods hand. In the end your proof of creationism relies only on rational (Logic), emotive, and authoritative (Bible and stuff your elders say) evidence but not a shred of credible hand of God stuff. Evolution does not preclude the hand of God in anyway, there is no reason that Evolution could not be a perfect system set up by the guy in the sky himself but there is no way to prove such a set up scientifically, it is a religious belief. The shepherd only cares about the lamb because he can exploit it for that which the lamb can provide. I don't mind people being children of god or servants of god but when they are a willing resource for exploitation I have to wonder, identifying with victimization is unhealthy, it certainly makes for good soldiers to go out and talk about how the sun revolves around the earth.
- Evolution does not preclude the hand of God in anyway, there is no reason that Evolution could not be a perfect system set up by the guy in the sky himself but there is no way to prove such a set up scientifically, it is a religious belief.
I think I grew up in a fairly unique home, with a devoutly religious father who also happens to be an anthropologist by trade. I appreciate now that he would never "tell me how it is" about evolution. He encouraged me to thoughtfully draw my own conclusions. I dont think they meant to, but cgod and mk do a pretty good job of describing where I sit. There is a lot of room for god in the discussion, but I can't imagine trying to "debunk" evolution. I once had a pretty enthusiastic creationist tell me that early hominid fossils were just fakes that god put on earth to test out faith. I think I've said this before on hubski... I believe in god. And I think he believes in us and wants us to push limits when it comes to understanding science and the universe. But I'm a little weird like that.
I was up till 2am debating this with my father in law last night. I found myself wishing that you and mk were there to help make the discussion more interesting. He is convinced that the world is 6000 years old. No matter what I said, it mattered not. Regardless of how frustrating, it was a civil exchange and a really interesting insight in to the mind of a devout evangelical.
I have been embarrassed by some of the things I used to "know". What I've come to "know" is, that I know nothing. There are things I can experience with the senses, but they can be fooled. There are things I can try to disprove with the scientific method and then accept the results. There are several things I believe in. There are things I have faith in, and hope for - but in the end, I know that I know nothing. I think people confuse "knowing" something with deciding something. It's super easy to believe that the earth is six thousand years old. You just decide it, and stop accepting notions to the contrary. It's much easier to "know" something when you don't even entertain contrary arguments. I can't do that though. I don't like being a fool. I really hate feeling stupid (I've had years of experience doing this).
There are several reasons that transitional fossils are rare. Firstly, the chance of any organism being fossilized is small, given that the conditions need to be perfect for fossilization to occur. Second, once fossilized, the fossils need to be found, which is problematic, because this requires old rock getting pushed up near the surface in many cases, and then not, say, being under the ocean. Furthermore, evolutionary transitions appear to happen relatively quickly (in geologic/evolutionary terms). This is due to the stability of ecological niches. It seems that transitions occur most readily when there is some disruption to the niche, which may happen because of a rare event such as a major volcano, asteroid impact, major river system being diverted, etc. In the mean time, it seems that slow genetic drift is dominant, which doesn't allow for radically different organisms to appear. Therefore, finding transitions is a rarity within a rarity. If you are interested to learn more, I would suggest picking up Gould's Full House. Its a masterfully written and easy to understand book about why and how evolution occurs.
Even if we have good transitional fossils for modern man they will insist that evolution is real and it happened by Gods hand and insist on teaching this as a fact in science classes. Despite the fact that I plan on teaching my daughter the most common bible stories (as a matter of cultural literacy, just like I'll read Shakespeare with her) I don't want her to be indoctrinated by others in what she should believe spiritually. It's sad, but really there is no evidence that will convince others that they shouldn't impose their spiritual belifes, this includes those of us that believe in science.
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That era in the fossil record IS indeed sparse, but not unexpectedly so. Primate populations are typically very small (until Homo sapiens came along). For example, we do not know nearly as much as we'd like about the evolutionary divergence of ANY of the great apes, for exactly the same reasons.
1. Homo sapiens have always been in numbers of millions and congregated together in large numbers. -Not true 2. Fossil discovery, extraction and analysis is easy. -Also not true. There is another thread going on right now about whether or not the discovery of extraterrestrial life (aliens) would impact religious belief? I actually think that finding more fully intact fossils from this era would do more to shake up belief. I wish them well in Ethiopia.