<p>Bay, *The Descent of Woman *by Elaine Morgan expounded that theory. It was as much a feminist riff on *The Descent of Man * as a serious treatise.</p>
<p>We don’t see much evolution in man because it works on big time scales. But as my husband says we aren’t really evolving any more - at least not in the sense that the fittest are surviving. Modern medicine has taken care of that for the most part.</p>
<p>Keep in mind too, when talking about humans, that even the relatively minor differences in skin color (i.e. melanin/vitamin D synthesis, as explained above) are impressive when you consider how recently humans evolved and how genetically homogeneous we are.</p>
<p>There’s actually less genetic variation on average between any two people picked at random from anywhere on the planet than there is on average between two chimpanzees in the same troop. Humans are overwhelmingly genetically similar compared to other species, even other primates.</p>
<p>mollie, that is an astonishing and somewhat sweet fact. makes me think that scientific knowledge might repair many wounds that petty group identifications have inflicted,…</p>
<p>although as I remember the complexity of your wedding preparations, it might be too much to expect a complete abandonment of inter-clan intrigues.</p>
<p>Well, I can’t rule out the possibility that some of my in-laws are from another planet entirely. :)</p>
<p>Wow. This is probably the most successful thread I’ve started…and it only took one word. I’m a graduate student in Biological Anthropology so I’m sure that you all know where I stand!</p>
<p>I wish I could laugh at this subject a bit more. My girl has fundamentalist friends who feel no inhibition in lecturing us on their views, or rather the views of their pastor. One day things got so heated between friends and dd that they wouldn’t get in the car for the ride home.</p>
<p>At least it’s allowed me to discuss w/dd the sorts of topics you can and cannot discuss in polite company (in spite of friend’s opposite behavior).</p>
<p>OP, my dad knew an evolutionary biologist who was a creationist. So I never assume anything about anyone’s views.</p>
<p>I’m still trying to figure out how one can be an evolutionary biologist and a creationist. He must have not been good at the former or a strong believer in the latter.</p>
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<p>Evolutionary Theory doesn’t contradict the notion of Creationism. Creationism only states that God snapped his fingers and poof! the world came to be. Period.</p>
<p>So… that God snapped his fingers to create the world, and then evolution took place. (at least one way of thinking about it)</p>
<p>One may argue that this is intelligent design or God-guided evolution, but there’s also the possibility that God created the world and then left it to undergo its own course.</p>
<p>If we’re taking a poll, I am in favor of:</p>
<p>1)Evolution (some people, and in some cases entire countries, could use more work)</p>
<p>2)Gravity (well, I get annoyed when I fall down. Nevertheless, I always obey the Law.)</p>
<p>3)Dancing with the Stars (survival of the Most Fit)</p>
<p>Post 88, couldn’t one believe that there is a God and He has a plan, but that scientific evolution is the plan? For example, one could totally buy Big Bang Theory and evolution, and simply believe that when God snapped his fingers that was the Big Bang and God’s plan was the evolution that proceeded over the millenia. I don’t think that’s what most creation science people think, nor do I think that’s what the intelligent design people think, but that is how I reconcile the two. Intelligent design could simply be that what the scientists know and discover is “the plan”. Not incompatible at all to me.</p>
<p>Separately, I would think that human evolution wouldn’t necessarily follow the same trajectory as plants or animals due to our intelligence allowing us to invent and/or manipulate things to help us adapt to the environment. At some point our bodies would not have to change to adapt as we could use things to do the adapting for us. otoh, our bodies might change as a result of using things in a way they would not have changed if we didn’t have the tools (if that makes any sense). So you can’t completely compare human evolution to plants and animals and say that if they don’t correlate, it disproves the theory. jmho.</p>
<p>There is plenty of evidence on the age of the earth and human existence is just a blip on the radar at this point. We have been here only a very, very short time.</p>
<p>When I was teaching biology full time, it was essential to explain the length of time evolution took to get us here. If you spread your arms wide to indicate the length the solar system has been in existence, you can erase all of human history by filing the nail on your middle finger. </p>
<p>;)</p>
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<p>Oh yes! That’s certainly a plausible scenario. I hope I didn’t imply that it couldn’t happen.</p>
<p>Here is an interestin bit of trivia, maybe not evolution exactly, but…On our recent trip to DC we went to the American Indian museum and saw a special exhibit of women’s clothing (beautiful examples of dresses in both leather and cloth) and in the children’s hands on room was a display on how the Indians cured the deer skin to make it supple for turning into clothes. After the initial skinning and scraping off the fur, the skin was stretched and there was a sample. It was hard as could be. Then came a process to soften it up that involved making “brain paste”. They took the brain of the deer who’s skin was being prepared and made a paste from that brain with a recipe of ingredients (so much of this or that depending on the size of the brain). Curiously each deer brain makes just the right amount of paste to cure the amount of skin that comes from that deer. (they rub the paste all over the hide and soak it over night, or so many days, then wash it off, something like that) When they are finished it is soft, supple and ready to be made into clothing. Not only is it interesting, I wonder how they knew to use the deer’s brain that way.</p>
<p>Apologies in advance to any vegetarians or vegans.</p>
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<p>Nice analogy… and yes the factor of time is one of the most difficult things for people to understand. The entire existence of recorded history represents nothing but the tiniest tiniest fraction of a moment since the big bang. I’ve heard similar analogies. For example, if the history of the Earth as we know it (just the Earth, not even the whole universe) was condensed into a 24 hour day at about 4 A.M. simple forms of life would start to appear, but the entire existence of the human race would occur in the last few seconds of the last minute before midnight.</p>
<p>Of course many creationists believe the earth is only 5,000 years old so all that’s moot anyway! ;-)</p>
<p>I agree that visual aids are very useful for demonstrating many ideas.</p>
<p>For example, the telescope has been around roughly 400 years (with obvious improvements over the years). Hence, we have been able to reasonably accurately map out and record the locations and motions of the planets, stars and other entities in the universe for around 400 of the universe’s 13.7 billion years. If you plot this on a time line with the horizontal axis as time and with the 400 years since the telescope as one millimeter along the horizontal axis, one would need to extrapolate (from this one millimeter of recorded data) around 21 miles back to the formation of the universe.</p>
<p>I wonder how they knew to use the deer’s brain that way?</p>
<p>I wonder why God designed foreskins to be cut away.</p>
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<p>pafather, for something that claims to have a PhD from MIT you seem to know very little about science. Current telescopes can see back billions of years thanks to the fact that the speed of light is finite… in fact in many ways a telescopes (optical, but especially radio) are the first time machines because they lets us look back in time. Measurements being taken about the beginning of the universe aren’t ‘extrapolations’ they’re actual measurements of real data… that’s why the last few decades of data have been so facinating.</p>
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I’ll leave the deer brains one alone but I’ll take a shot at this one. </p>
<p>She was ****ed off? ;)</p>
<p>“I wonder why God designed foreskins to be cut away.”</p>
<p>In order to create rings of Saturn (you can look it up).</p>
<p>rocketman08,</p>
<p>As I correctly stated above, we on earth have only been able to reasonably accurately record data about planets, stars, and other objects in space for around 400 years. This is a fact. You may not like this fact, but nonetheless it is a fact. You may conclude that when we receive light from an object that appears to be millions or billions of light years away that the universe necessarily must be millions or billions of years old, but this is indisputably an extrapolation. It is at least conceptually possible that the universe may have been created at a much later time with the light waves and other radiatiation appearing as if they had been generated by objects millions or billions of light years away. In my post, I never addressed the reasonableness of this assumption.</p>
<p>You obviously did not take the time to read my post before sending off an inappropriate response. Hopefully your science is performed more carefully than your incorrect response (even after you edited it). You should be aware of the implicit assumptions in your analysis. Unfortunately, you are not. I am disappointed but not shocked by your limited scientific approach.</p>