xAsunaWolfx said
This question has me curious. Any evolutionist want to take that one? it was rather...overlooked, or it was server lag.

It's a joke. Humans share a common ancestor with apes, first off, and secondly this is covered in the very basis in Darwin's research (finches evolving different beaks depending on their environment and available food in it.) Said statement is one of the most frequently used counters, and laughed at because the statement in itself is ignorant. It makes no effort to even hear what evolution has to say, because the theory and and by itself answers this.

Yog Sothoth said
nice way of showing how much of an asshole you are. you're just proving my point about how atheist like you are ignorant dicks like the religious extremists. you sir are sad and pathetic

A philosopher does not simply think about life and the universe, they attempt to communicate and spread their philosophies. After all, their thinking is useless if they can't explain their reasoning to others. Philosophy has always relied on rhetoric ability to make an impact on others. If you see this as an attempt to spread your knowledge and ideas, you are mislabelling yourself. Not in the least even, considering you degrade yourself to replying on an emotional level and having it take precedence over your argument. Things like this post exactly, make you lose all kinds of credibility as a philosopher, or debater, or well... Anything. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to reconsider the way you communicate and whether your sense of self esteem takes priority, or your argument.

Yog Sothoth said
interesting post, but it won't matter, atheism will be gone in about fifty years when the populations shift and Africa and the middle east become the dominant powers. religion has seen worse than most people can imagine and it's still here, so regardless of how much atheists insult or argue, faith and belief come naturally to us, it has been proven. also since when does something always have to be fact to be the right course of action? no one can make an absolute prediction, also science is mostly guess work and not always correct. religion is asking for people to trust in it and have belief in it. we as a species put faith in each other to do the right thing and are never always sure what the outcome of a decision is. my opinion, evolution is still believed because it has yet to be disproved, but for all we know it could be disproved in the next ten years. before you guys jump on me and call me a religious moron like many atheist jerks do, I'm not religious, I'm a philosopher and i laugh at how hypocritical atheists are nowadays by calling people stupid and retarded. it proves how hateful human beings who don't truly understand knowledge are and just use it to feel superior.

This whole thread is terrible, but I'd like to point out this post because I've never seen someone so scared of brown people.

Yog Sothoth said i would like to point out that in today's world people are treated as inferior because they lack understanding, which is why I make criticisms of ignorant atheists.

That's like saying that because some people are bad we should kill all white people. There's utterly no connection there. At all... Even basic philosophy follows some kind of basic paradigm of logic. I'm sure you know this.

Yog Sothoth said also in my opinion, being angry does not give one the right to be ignorant,

Yet you're arguing for the "right" to be taken seriously despite your abhorrent spelling and grammar. You are willfully ignorant of how actual English functions.

Also, who the hell are you to be telling people whether or not they're allowed to be ignorant? A person is allowed to not know something. That's not evil, that's... Very normal. The first step to wisdom, in fact, is to admit that you know nothing. You argue that atheists calling people dumb makes them assholes then turn right around and say that people are not allowed to be ignorant.

Yog Sothoth said that is called double standards

Something you know quite intimately, apparently.

Yog Sothoth said and is why it is harder to break down prejudices.

Like the ones you have against atheists. Because after all, only atheists would ever call people dumb. That logic is totally, completely infallible.

Yog Sothoth said bullies are the way they are usually because they themselves have been bullied, does that give them the right to hurt other people? no it doesn't. there should never be an excuse for ignorance.

Ignorance =/= Bullying. The fact that you equate the two to be inseparable is actually somewhat disturbing. Ignorance is to bullying what ice cream is to a bicycle: Nothing in common. Ignorance is not knowing something, it is the lack of awareness of something. This is not a crime, and it's not unreasonable. We are human beings, mammals with limited capacity for knowledge, flawed memories that are often poisoned by emotion, and whose primary organ for conscious function we still don't understand all that well.

Bullying is malicious behaviour done with the intent to attack and degrade someone. There are many reasons why this happens, not just because someone who was bullied becomes a bully. That logic makes no sense, if that was true, everyone who was bullied should become a bully, but that's not what it. It has a lot more to do with upbringing, financial and social stimulus and problems, than it does with having been bullied. I was bullied, I'm not a bully now. Most of my friends were, the majority of them are not bullies now.

You approach this topic with an extremely black and white opinion. That doesn't strike me as philosophy, which is a field prone to being so grey it sometimes hurts to try and understand it. Again, read the thread, and when you see that nobody was attacking anyone or trying to degrade each other, you'll see what I mean.

Not that it matters now, me thinks, you've thoroughly derailed this thread from its original course into lands that will likely get it closed. Good job.

Yog Sothoth said
nice way of showing how much of an asshole you are. you're just proving my point about how atheist like you are ignorant dicks like the religious extremists. you sir are sad and pathetic

You know. Posts like these show what kind of a person you really are. To presume characteristics and traits about other people you don't even know, so you can further dehumanize them and reassure yourself that the cruel things you say to them are justified. Things like calling someone an asshole because they find your writing hard to understand, or how people who disagree with you are, as you so put it, "ignorant dicks". Perhaps, as a philosopher, it's time for you to sit down, and be introspective with yourself. Ask yourself, genuinely, why you feel the need to call someone who didn't like your lack of English skills a "sad and pathetic" person.

You hate bullies, and yet, you behave like one here. After all, you're trying to degrade Kadaeux and viciously attack him on a personal level because, again, I must stress this... He didn't like the way you wrote something.

Congratulations. You are the perfect epitome of the phrase "pot meeting kettle". Please. I implore you. Learn how to be a decent person, then learn how to read threads, then you can start posting and be taken seriously.

Turtlicious said
This whole thread is terrible, but I'd like to point out this post because I've never seen someone so scared of brown people.

It's a terrible day when I agree with you, but yes, that is extremely amusing.

ActRaiserTheReturned said
Chinese history cannot be damning towards the Creation hypothesis. The Chinese don't exactly like to share their mythology/religions and the entirety of their culture with the rest of the world.

They may not like sharing their religion or culture, but we're talking about their recorded history here and the fact of the matter is that it has been shared nonetheless. Just because they are reticent about sharing it does not make it invalid. The point being made is that Chinese history is continuous and pretty reliable (it has been verified and corroborated by records from other nearby people for many events, unlike the Bible which contradicts recorded history many times), and it makes zero mention of a worldwide flood (which as I understand it is supposed to have happened within the last 4700 years, and that's about how far back the Chinese calendar goes, just for an idea of how long they've been recording stuff) that wiped out their civilization. Similarly, as Brovo said, there are plenty of other written and oral history records that go back quite a way and have no mention of a worldwide flood.

Chinese history doesn't contradict the creation idea, so you're right about that, but nobody ever made that claim before you tried to refute it out of nowhere. Brovo said it contradicts the idea of the worldwide flood and thus Noah's Ark, then went on to say this is just one example of creationism's failings. In that respect, if it's creationism that includes a literal interpretation of the Bible, he's right about that. For the general concept of there being a creator entity, nope, Chinese history can't touch that.

---

Yog Sothoth said interesting post, but it won't matter, atheism will be gone in about fifty years when the populations shift and Africa and the middle east become the dominant powers.

Er, even if your prediction about Africa and the Middle East becoming dominant world powers in the next fifty years turned out to be true, that would in no way mean the eradication of atheism. First of all, there are atheists in those regions of the world. Second, even if they do become dominant, that doesn't mean all people in the current dominant regions of the world (or the rest of the world for that matter) will suddenly be eradicated, so atheists outside of Africa and the Middle East would still likely exist. Third, atheism is on the rise around the world, so I'm confused as to why you think it will be gone in the next fifty years. These two ideas lack any coherent connection so far as I can see.

religion has seen worse than most people can imagine and it's still here, so regardless of how much atheists insult or argue, faith and belief come naturally to us, it has been proven.

Yeah, religion is resilient, what of it? Nobody has said religion is dying or anything, they've simply disagreed with the concept of creationism (which is the idea that a supreme being created humans and other animals as they are now; creation in some other way is still entirely possible even if you acknowledge evolution as a fact of life). Religion can exist without creationism, so even if creationism were somehow to die out as an idea there would still be religion. I don't think anyone here is foolish enough to think otherwise.

also since when does something always have to be fact to be the right course of action?

When the choice is between facts and fiction, then the fact-based course is usually the right one. When there are no facts to be had, well, then if there's a right course of action to be taken then it obviously doesn't have to be a fact. I'm not sure what you're even getting at here. Are you responding to something in specific in the thread? This doesn't seem connected to anything you've said before in this post.

no one can make an absolute prediction, also science is mostly guess work and not always correct.

Some predictions can be made with absolute certainty though. If you are standing outside on Earth and you drop an apple, it will fall to the ground. That is an absolute prediction that has been found true again and again and again and it will remain true unless something changes the conditions present on Earth, such as a sudden change in how gravity works.

Science is not guess work, it is the attempt to understand the universe by trying to figure out how it works. Predictability is actually a core factor of something being considered legitimate and accepted science: you have to be able to make a prediction of how something will work (such as "if you drop an apple, it will fall to the ground"), then demonstrate that your prediction was correct (such as by dropping a thousand apples in control conditions in the lab and then going out and dropping thousands of apples in various locations around the world to get the same result), and then put your data out there for others to test and verify before your information is actually considered true by the scientific community. If someone were to say that dropping an apple would make it turn into an orange, that would be guess work and not any sort of scientific fact... unless they demonstrated it and the results held up under peer review. Part of the scientific process is rigorous testing to make sure it's not just baseless guesses, because guesses do not help us understand how things work.

You're right that science is not always correct, but the cool thing about it is that it's self-correcting. If some new evidence is gathered that contradicts an existing theory, it is either updated to account for the new information or a new theory is created to explain things in light of the new information. The theory of gravity is not just guess work, it is a set of explanations about how one of the core forces of the universe works. Newton's original version of this theory turned out to be incorrect when it came to very small or very massive objects, so the new evidence came along and Einstein looked at it and whipped up his theory of relativity to explain why things worked differently depending on the mass of the objects being observed. That was rigorously peer reviewed and found to be accurate by many different people, thus the scientific community accepted this new information and there was much rejoicing for they had gained a better understanding of the universe. This is how science works, not by making guesses and calling it good.

religion is asking for people to trust in it and have belief in it. we as a species put faith in each other to do the right thing and are never always sure what the outcome of a decision is.

Okay? Religion is based on faith, people put some level of faith in others in their regular life. These are two facts that I think we can all agree on. Why are you relating them to one another? I don't understand what point you're trying to make here.

my opinion, evolution is still believed because it has yet to be disproved, but for all we know it could be disproved in the next ten years.

Well yeah, we still believe in gravity because it also has yet to be disproved, what of it? This isn't just your opinion, it's a fact that the reason why people say evolution is true is because it hasn't been disproved (and also because of the mountains of evidence for it). Once more, I fail to understand what your point is. Are you trying to say that you think evolution is false and that it will be proven so eventually? Are you saying we shouldn't view evolution as true because there's a chance it could be disproved? Is there some other option I'm missing here?

before you guys jump on me and call me a religious moron like many atheist jerks do, I'm not religious, I'm a philosopher and i laugh at how hypocritical atheists are nowadays by calling people stupid and retarded. it proves how hateful human beings who don't truly understand knowledge are and just use it to feel superior.

You seem to be hyper focused on having some kind of atheism versus religion debate. This thread wasn't really about that, but okay, whatever floats your boat. I haven't seen any mud slinging in this thread until you just now implied that all atheists are hypocritical for supposedly insulting the intelligence of religious people (which implies that atheists are stupid, otherwise it would not by hypocrisy), so I guess you're just making a generalization based on seeing the awful minority that does that; I say minority because from what I've experienced of both atheists and religious people, most of them don't even get into these kinds of discussions in the first place, much less sling insults and such. I do have to say that I find it somewhat strange that you're not religious, as you seem very biased toward religion and against atheism, but I suppose you being some kind of agnostic or being an irreligious believer in some kind of higher power could make sense too.

Anyway, on to your next post that I wanted to respond to.

I'm calling bullshit on you saying I'm terrible at articulating myself. the Africa and Middle East theory could happen, you never know. once again I don't share your opinion and you insult me for it. hypocrite much?

Well, to be less hyperbolic about it than Kadaeux, your initial post didn't seem to have much of a cohesive thread running through it, it just had the general theme of you disliking atheism that seemed to be the link between each idea. You jumped from one idea to another without going into detail on any of them, which made for a kind of jarring read. Notice how I broke your post up into different sections to respond to each of them? That's because each one seemed to be a separate idea that merited a response. Notice how many points I responded to by saying I wasn't sure what you were trying to say with it? Those are all things that could have done with some more detail to explain your views rather than jumping immediately to the next idea.

You've clearly got ideas you wish to convey to others, but your way of communicating them isn't very efficient. I know Kadaeux brings up your way of typing, but that doesn't have much of an effect on the communication of your ideas. It's just that lack of clarification and moving from one thing to another quickly that causes issues, which is rather easily fixed.

a good amount of science has to do with educated guesswork and trying to prove it to be fact. look at paleontology, that is mostly guesswork and is never truly proven to be fact, and that is a form of science. are you suggesting that science is always fact and never involves any sort of guesswork? my whole point is that at the end of the day both religious and non-religious people have tendencies to be assholes to one another, and claim to want the right to an opinion but insult others who don't share their opinion.

It's not even a "good amount" of science that starts from an educated guess and then seeks to prove it, it's all of science that does that, though your phrasing makes it seem shady. How it works is someone observes something that is not currently understood or explain by science, then they seek to explain it by drawing on current scientific knowledge as needed and then positing what they think the reason is for whatever they observe being the way that it is. This basic explanation, which is essentially an educated guess, is called a hypothesis. This isn't "guess work" as you characterized science in a previous post (which makes it sound like it's based on nothing but guesses with no proof), it's a rough draft that is based on research and observation. The thing to keep in mind is that hypotheses are -not- what make up scientific facts, they are the first step toward trying to explain something that is not currently understood. Something is not considered a scientific fact until it has been further researched with experiments done and peer review conducted to see if others get the same findings; if someone cannot support their hypothesis via experimentation and further observation, or it gets destroyed by peer review, the idea is either tossed to the scrap heap or sent back to the drawing board. The guesses don't get accepted into the body of scientific fact until they've been heavily supported to the point that they're no longer just guesses, which is why people who are familiar with the processes of science will get up in arms about you calling it "guess work" and similar things.

---

Alex said
if we evolved from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?

checkmate athiests

oh u

xAsunaWolfx said This question has me curious. Any evolutionist want to take that one? it was rather...overlooked, or it was server lag.

Kestrel already covered this rather concisely. To expand on that a bit, because I'm awful at brevity and I like sharing scientific knowledge with people, it's similar to how domesticated dogs started off with a few breeds but now there are tons; here is an image showing a limited selection of dog breeds and where they came from. Humans did not actually evolve directly from monkeys, we had a common ancestor. Take a look at the far right of that dog chart, where the Tibetan Mastiff is, then go find the Doberman Pinscher and the Labrador Retriever breeds down near the bottom of the chart on that same side. The question "if humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" is like asking "if Labrador Retrievers evolved from Doberman Pinschers, why are there still Doberman Pinschers?" The short answer is that they did not. In reality those two dog breeds share a common ancestor in the Tibetan Mastiff, and similarly humans and various monkeys and apes share common ancestors, not a direct link.

First (though not at the same time, I'm simplifying here) there was a split between different types of primates due to differing environments and mutations, specifically into three groups called apes (the one humans are part of), old world monkeys, and new world monkeys; right there you have a split, where the types of creatures known as monkeys are no longer part of the group humans are in, and there are more steps to come before you get to humans, so the premise of the question is already debunked via technicality. To continue on anyway, the apes then split into those known as lesser apes and great apes (humans are in this one). Then the great apes split off into different environments and divided into more subgroups, including chimps, gorillas, orangutans, and humans. It did not go immediately from a great ape ancestor to homo sapiens (which is the taxonomic name for our species of modern day humans) though: there were many intermediary steps in which species of the genus homo lived and bred until significant changes occurred to the point that modern day taxonomists and such decided they were different species from what came before, so on and so forth for many thousands of years with tons of generations and species passed through until you get to homo sapiens. We've got a lot of species of differentiation between ourselves and chimpanzees, who are our closest relative species, and they're far closer to us than monkeys. Oh, also, fun fact: you know that second part of the question that asks why monkeys are still around which implies that there shouldn't be any of an ancestor species left around? Yeah, the common ancestor we shared with monkeys isn't around anymore, some of the groups thrived and evolved and the rest eventually died.

Look at or think back to that dog evolution chart. See how goofy it'd be to say Labrador Retrievers evolved from Doberman Pinschers? There are way more steps between modern humans (and the genus homo altogether) and monkeys than there are between those two dog breeds. Hell, there are also more steps between us and chimpanzees than between those two dog breeds, and chimpanzees another type of great ape and our closest genetic relative species, so the whole humans and monkeys thing is just silly. The reason why most people ignore or laugh off the monkey question is because it displays a lack of knowledge about how evolution works and instantly conveys the fact that the person asking the question actually has no idea what evolution says about the origin of humans. It's something that a person who did not understand evolution thought up and figured was a solid attack on the theory, and for some reason people keep bringing the question up as if it's still a legitimate question despite it being knocked down time and time again.

By the way, if my explanation wasn't clear enough feel free to ask about any of it and I'll do what I can to explain it better or link you to somewhere that does a better job of it than I can.

I'm reading this before my placement startsin a few minutes and I still have a page to go before replying in full.

But to address two things quickly right now...

1. Kadaeux. Lay off on the insults. You're not getting anywhere.

2. We did not evolve from todays monkeys. We and modern day monkeys evolved from a common ancestor. Like how many breeds of dogs evolved from wolves.

Magic Magnum said
I'm reading this before my placement startsin a few minutes and I still have a page to go before replying in full.But to address two things quickly right now...1. Kadaeux. Lay off on the insults. You're not getting anywhere.2. We did not evolve from todays monkeys. We and modern day monkeys evolved from a common ancestor. Like how many breeds of dogs evolved from wolves.

There are no insults. If you think anywhere in my posts there has been an insult I suggest you get out more, or look at Yog Sothoth's posts which do in fact contain actual insults, generalised ones to boot.

I think I myself could swing as either an evolutionist or as a believer in intelligent design, but I think believe more in the former and only consider the latter because frankly, it's a nice idea. I used to be pretty hardcore religious, but as ive grown into my own and been allowed to experience life without someone shoving me from one place to another, ie: my parents sending me to bible camp every summer, I think I've grown increasingly agnostic. I'm going to assume were referring to creationism by the christian beleifs, since that seems to be a topic the last few pages have been arguing about.

I think the old school belief that the earth is only 6,000 years old, or however young most creationists believe, is too far fetched and lacking in empirical evidence to be given any merit at all. I've heard all mannerisms of counter arguements from time is relative to the bible can't be interpretated literally, but in either case I think the arguements are weak. As far as Intelligent Design goes, I think that philospohy doesn't hold any more or less merit than any other belief, especially when you consider that life comes from life, so the idea that life just suddenly happened is a tad silly.

Of course there have been quiet a few expirments and theories purposed on this, such as in one instance (I'll look for the source, but I think i'm referring to the Miller-Urey Expirment) a researcher filled some kind of apparatus with elements likely found in earths early atmosphere such as Nitrogen, Hellium etc, and I can't remember if he passed electrical charges through the gases or not, but I remember the expirment started with these non-living elements, but by the end of the expirment he had created (very basic) amino acids found in living organisms, but of course even then the amino acids existed but weren't really part of some sort of organized structure found in living organisms.

The jist of that is a researcher was able to create the building blocks of life (amino acids) using elements likely found in the early earth. Of course just making an amino acid is a long stretch away from a living organism, even a single celled organism, but the point is the building blocks of life were created from non-living elements found in the Earth's early atmosphere. So now where left with a handful of amino acids with no real purpose, when you consider that these building blocks were being created frequently over a prolonged course of history, and you consider chaos theory, then eventually given an infinite amount of time the amino acids could be arranged in a meaningful way, ie. the precursors to life. So either we got extremley lucky and these amino acids were able to organize into the foundation of a living organism or intelligent design is behind it all. I think as time progresses, more answers will become evident and we may very well discover how life came to be, but in the meantime I don't think either belief holds much more sway over the other.

But then you get into the entire "energy can neither be created nor destroyed' so where did energy come from? Could it just be a universal constant? The idea itself that energy could just exist in a matter of fact way is kind of jarring, almost as jarring as believing an outside entity created all of life. Of course this too may be explained in the future after we grow as a species.

The jist of what I'm saying is that while I myself am an evolutionist, I don't see those believing in intelligent design as being uncredited. Intelligent design is a nice thing to believe in, since it's nice to believe we as a species have some purpose, but creationism is something I personally place absolutely no stock in.

It's also interesting how no one believing in intelligent design has eluded to the possibility that maybe our species wasn't the 'chosen' species in the creators vision. It'd be kind of funny to see a person who believed in intelligent design and believed Dolphins or Aphids were the center of the universe. It's also funny that many who believe in Intelligent design believe that an omnipotent being would give a damn about us... haha.

Kadaeux said
There are no insults. If you think anywhere in my posts there has been an insult I suggest you get out more, or look at Yog Sothoth's posts which do in fact contain actual insults, generalised ones to boot.

I never insulted you, nerd

also, generalized.

OK, I'm caught up and there's little to comment on. Just arguing against everything that You has been saying. However...

1. Still on my phone so doing long paragraphs and quotes is a huge pain.

2. Jorick and Brovo covered this extensively by now.

So basically I'll just leave their posts with a [2] and leave it at that.

Kadaeux said
There are no insults. If you think anywhere in my posts there has been an insult I suggest you get out more, or look at Yog Sothoth's posts which do in fact contain actual insults, generalised ones to boot.

You are both casting insults. Granted he is doing it far worse. But getting mad at him for it just feels like getting mad a baby for pooping in their diaper. They can't help it.

Be the better man and either ignore him or disprove his points without insulting him over it. Him being insulted to that is only adding to his fire any how.

Alex said
if we evolved from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?checkmate athiests

xAsunaWolfx said
This question has me curious. Any evolutionist want to take that one? it was rather...overlooked, or it was server lag.

My response to this is a counter question based on Genesis/the creation of Man:

If God made Man out of dirt, then why is there still dirt?

If someone was asked the question above, the most logical answer would be to say God only used some of the dirt. Similarly only some of the ancient monkeys evolved into humans.

Also keep in mind that we didn't evolve from the monkeys you see today but an ancestor we happen to share with them. How a species evolves depends on conditions, one set of conditions led to humans while another led to modern monkeys.

Kestrel said umans share a common ancestor with apes, first off,

Jorick said Humans did not actually evolve directly from monkeys, we had a common ancestor.

Magic Magnum said 2. We did not evolve from todays monkeys. We and modern day monkeys evolved from a common ancestor. Like how many breeds of dogs evolved from wolves.

K-97 said Also keep in mind that we didn't evolve from the monkeys you see today but an ancestor we happen to share with them. How a species evolves depends on conditions, one set of conditions led to humans while another led to modern monkeys.

I think we should have a few more people reiterate this.

@Brand- Agreed. Asking why there is still dirt doesn't make sense since the earth is really composed of it and without dirt... Well, there would be little to no life. While monkeys are.... Monkeys

xAsunaWolfx said
@Brand- Agreed. Asking why there is still dirt doesn't make sense since the earth is really composed of it and without dirt... Well, there would be little to no life. While monkeys are.... Monkeys

What? I just thought it was silly of for the same thing to be said through four separate posts. I'm not entirely sure what you're saying.

Wow this thread exploded 0.0

xAsunaWolfx said
@Brand- Agreed. Asking why there is still dirt doesn't make sense since the earth is really composed of it and without dirt... Well, there would be little to no life. While monkeys are.... Monkeys

tl;dr: Maths and statistics.

We'll over-simplify it to an extreme.

You have 100 subjects. Lets call them Original Monkeys. Original monkeys have a breeding rate of three per year, as the base value to follow.

Now, random mutations occur within the Original Monkey breed, as when two parents mate (or in the case of cells: asexual reproduction) there is a chance that small parts of the genetic code get written incorrectly. Like if you keep making a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy--eventually, somewhere down the line, one copy is going to be different to the original due to an error in re-sequencing the code from its base parts.

So! We have a few mutations begin to appear. Some of them are beneficial, some are not, and some of the Original Monkeys do not mutate--after all, some copies do end up perfect by random chance.

Now lets say after a few generations, there are two new subtypes of Original Monkey: Fast Monkey and Rabbit Monkey. Fast Monkey is faster, and thus escapes more predators. Despite breeding at the same rate, more of their children survive, and thus start to dominate the habitat that the Original Monkey used to be the most effective in. Rabbit Monkey uses a different advantage: Multiplying faster and more often. Rabbit Monkey has six children instead of just three, so even if Rabbit Monkey loses two children to every one child Original Monkey loses, Rabbit Monkey still multiplies much faster and thus dominates the environment better, thus spreading that gene more effectively than the Original Monkey does.

Original Monkey then either continues on, or gets outpaced by evolved predators/its descendents.

Several generations later, and with further mutations, and you'll have several new subtypes of monkeys based on Rabbit Monkey and Fast Monkey. Continue going on and on and on, and eventually, a fast monkey sub-type might breed wings, or a rabbit monkey subtype might learn to burrow and evolve the appropriate tools for it. This doesn't remove the old versions from the environment, this simply means that the reproduction process is imperfect, occasionally glitches, and creates new traits, some of which are beneficial and thus naturally allow more survivors to pass it on, and some of which are not, which damage survival chances and the odds of passing it on.

This is also why you see imperfect design flaws--some imperfect things still get through by random chance. For example: The human appendix. It's totally worthless now but if it ruptures it will probably kill you if you don't get immediate medical attention. Why is it still there? Because one of our ancestors needed it for some purpose that we no longer use it for as a descendent.

Here, an example of five human body parts that are totally worthless nowadays.

And that's the tl;dr to evolution as a process. Out of 100 original monkeys, 10 have random small mutations, 5 of them reproduce more successfully due to that mutation, which then spreads through as a dominant gene. There are still original monkeys, they just aren't as effective anymore. Like how each edition of Windows is supposed to improve upon the previous version--some of them are terrible and die quickly, like Vista or ME, while others are great and live on for ages, like XP. XP spawned Vista, but Vista was inferior, so XP outlived it. Vista spawned Windows 7, which was better than XP, but hasn't totally eliminated it, and so on.

Hope that makes sense.

Shy said
Wow this thread exploded 0.0

And remarkable, it isn't closed! Life's little marvels, eh'?

xAsunaWolfx said
@Brand- Agreed. Asking why there is still dirt doesn't make sense since the earth is really composed of it and without dirt... Well, there would be little to no life. While monkeys are.... Monkeys

I'm going to elaborate on my first point, the others have covered my second point in more detail:

Here is what the Bible says when it talks about the creation of Man:

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

So as I doubt the validity of the statement I asked a question: If God made Man out of dirt (or dust to be specific), then why is there still dirt?

However as you pointed out, any smart person would consider this a stupid question. The statement never said God used all the dirt in the world and why would God use all the dirt in the Earth, there wouldn't be much of an Earth left. Anyone in God's position would only use some of the dirt.

Just because Man was made out of dirt, doesn't mean God has to have used all of the dirt in our creation.

In a similar way if I doubted the Theory of Evolution I could ask as you have: If we evolved from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?

Well the Theory of Evolution doesn't say all the monkeys evolved into humans, what it actually says is only some evolved into humans. The evolution of an animal is influenced by their environment, only some monkeys were in an environment which led to them evolving into humans whereas others were in an environment which led to them staying as monkeys.

Just because humans evolved from monkeys, doesn't mean all monkeys evolved into humans.

Both these questions make the same mistake and show a misunderstanding of the theory in question, once you understand the theory in question then it becomes clear that the questions asked are pointless.

Brand said [b]It's also interesting how no one believing in intelligent design has eluded to the possibility that maybe our species wasn't the 'chosen' species in the creators vision.[b] It'd be kind of funny to see a person who believed in intelligent design and believed Dolphins or Aphids were the center of the universe. It's also funny that many who believe in Intelligent design believe that an omnipotent being would give a damn about us... haha.

There is a story I saw on Reddit called 'The Martyr' describing this exact situation:

A team of men capture some aliens subject them to experiments, humanity have been in contact with these aliens for years but have realised that while they are more than happy to share information on physics and other sciences, they always deftly change the subject when asked about their psychic powers, as if they are hiding something.
The experiments progress and realising humanity is finding out too much about their psychic powers, one of the prisoners apparently sacrifices himself to bring a message to their species, who come to rescue them.

The men try to come up with an explanation for how the message was sent. A heated discussion ensues with the team accusing the aliens of covering up something which could benefit mankind; in the end the aliens reveal what they were hiding.

It turns out that there is an Afterlife and that the living can interact with it, the Team realises that this proves the existence of the soul and ponder the ramifications of this discovery on both science and religion before asking why the Aliens would hide that humans have souls.

K-97 said
There is a story I saw on Reddit called 'The Martyr' describing this exact situation: A team of men capture some aliens subject them to experiments, humanity have been in contact with these aliens for years but have realised that while they are more than happy to share information on physics and other sciences, they always deftly change the subject when asked about their psychic powers, as if they are hiding something.The experiments progress and realising humanity is finding out too much about their psychic powers, one of the prisoners apparently sacrifices himself to bring a message to their species, who come to rescue them. The men try to come up with an explanation for how the message was sent. A heated discussion ensues with the team accusing the aliens of covering up something which could benefit mankind; in the end the aliens reveal what they were hiding. It turns out that there is an Afterlife and that the living can interact with it, the Team realises that this proves the existence of the soul and ponder the ramifications of this discovery on both science and religion before asking why the Aliens would hide that humans have souls.

Is that a book, or was it a user wirtten story? That's pretty awesome.

I honestly think schools don't cover evolution well enough.