mterek Posted:

Single celled eukaryotes → multi-celled eukaryotes isn’t that hard to believe. Some prokaryotes also aggregate and specialize functions in films.

Prokaryotes to eukaryotes isn’t all that far fetched either when one understands how organelles arose.

The real problem is how some inorganic gbumes, metals, non-metals and halogens mixed with lightning and water somehow produced prokaryotes.

I’m getting something of an education in this stuff as part of my degree course (weird system here… I sign up to do Computer Science, they have us do a course from the general sciences options alongside it in the first year) so I don’t have any trouble believing it. Just scaling up the subject of apparent disbelief to the large scale case.

I mean, it is pretty f’in incredible that every diverse form of life, in the seas, the air, on land, be it animal or plant or neither, that all of it started from a single ancestor. But incredible and impossible are two markedly different things. You often see people argue out of personal incredulity, that something just couldn’t be, but then you learn more and see that it can be the case, and that it’s the best explanation going.

Relevant comic link right there…

quangntenemy Posted:

I believe in revolution. I myself am a revolutionist Log in to see images!

Viva la revolucion!

It’s not something one believes in; it is, as pointed out earlier in the thread, a fact. We don’t “believe in” gravity; it simply is. Similarly, we don’t “believe in” evolution; it simply is.

trolling cd with topics about evolution. sigh.

Sergeant Cid Posted:

In fact, I came away with a solid counter-point when debating with fundies who try to cast doubts based on the phrase ‘theory of evolution.’ Much appreciated.

The real counterpoint there is the scientific use of the word theory – to be a theory instead of a hypothesis, an idea has to agree with all the evidence, make testable predictions, be potentially falsifiable but have not been actually falsified despite that.

Common usage makes it sound like a guess. That is not the way the word is used in Science™

But fundies would probably still insistently say “but it’s just a theory”, even after you patiently explain that it does not mean what they think it means, and that the theory of evolution is about as much a guess as the theory of universal gravitation. You have to be pretty willing to ignore facts to continue being a fundie.

I don’t see any points that haven’t been brought up time and time again. I remain unconvinced as to how exactly the point of this is not just to get people to argue with each other.

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sdgrbbum09 Posted:

On one side, you have rich, pretentious, over-educated white people who say that everything started when a blob of **** in the middle of the universe that contained everything in the universe blew up and scattered said **** all over the universe which over a few billion years magically formed the earth (which is around 4.5 billion years old or so) and over billions of years, we evolved from fish.

On the other side, you have most of America; middle to lower clbum, less formally educated people who believe that about 5,000-10,000 years ago, some all-powerful, all-knowing presence just went “POOF” and bam, everything.

Both options sound like bull**** to me.

There’s the interesting thing about facts: if they sound unbelievable, you can study them and find out how they work.

And trust me, I recently studied quantum physics, and I know how unbelievable science can sound.

Did you know that if you run at a wall, there’s always a chance you’ll quantum-tunnel straight through it? Keep trying and see!

Here I go again Log in to see images!

Did you know there are two different KINDS of evolution? Macroevolution and microevolution.

Macroevolution is the one you’re probably referring to — the evolution of one species into another. That’s the one that says monkey and humans had a common ancestor.

Microevolution is evolution within a species, such as bacteria which evolve to become immune to antibiotics.

While we have witnessed microevolution first-hand, no one has yet been able to come up with a scientific proof that can be verified for macroevolution. There is NO WAY to do that for macroevolution, because a key step, “Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment”, cannot be performed without thousands or millions of years for the experiment to run its course.

So macroevolution, despite what man-man those “rationalists” say, will always, ALWAYS, remain just a theory. Unless of course something comes along which disproves it.

Ricket Posted:

MC Banhammer, stop trolling. Log in to see images!

Please point out to me where I was trolling.