Originally posted by: zinfamous
Originally posted by: XMan
I don't deny that species can adapt to changes in environment, and those that do tend to survive, but the one question I've had about evolution (and never had explained to my satisfaction) is - if mankind descended from apes, why are there still apes? Dinosaurs were the predecessors to birds, but there aren't any more dinosaurs.
because apes are still well-adapted to their environment (which has not changed drastically since their appearance--unlike that of the Dinosaurs). This is really far more simple than you want to believe it to be...
Also, evolution is a tree--not a ladder. Species don't dissapear when they speciate. Lineages tend to continue on within several species.
And if that XMan's argument was the case, we'd have exactly one species left on the planet.
Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
Originally posted by: Citrix
its a therory not fact. there is no proof of evolution.
Ahh, but there is no proof of creationism either.
Creationism is unfortunately exempt from needing proof. For one, the religion upon which it is based requires faith - absense of proof, and the refusal to seek it. Proof destroys faith.
Secondly, creationism is not falsifiable. Scientific theory must be falsifiable. Evolution can be proven wrong. If one day a chicken lays an egg which hatches into a bear, well then we've got a problem. The most likely place I see that happening would be in the lab of South Park's resident genetic scientist.
Originally posted by: sao123
Because no-one has been able to explain how the first single living creature came about.
You cannot base a theory from point A1 to point AN unless you can guarantee that point A1 is your absolute starting point. As soon as someone comes along and says the journey actually started A0 or A3, then your entire theory is bunk.
Until (a/bio)genesis can be explained, evolution is meaningless.
Heavier-than-air flying machines were also unexplainable for quite some time. Fire was unexplainable for a long time.
Nature had the chance for trillions of iterations in ancient oceans, in salt flats, or in lakes, trillions of places where it "tried" various combinations of chemicals over many many millions of years. We've had the technology to replicate this for only several decades, isolated to a few laboratories.
Sure, the chances of abiogenesis are slim, but nature had a whole planet to toy around with, over a very long time. The lottery is winnable too. All that was really needed was for just one complete iteration to work.
Originally posted by: XMan
If apes are well-adapted to their environment, what environmental change occured that resulted in primordial apes evolving into humans? By that argument the evolution ought never have happened.
Check around this planet. We have more than one kind of ecological system. Maybe some apes decided to leave because one area was getting crowded.
Each life form has a niche in its environment. Maybe animals are all competing for a certain food source, so some decide to try other foods. Former carnivores may find that nuts are tasty, and a lot easier to catch than animals. Over many generations, traits that help those animals survive better, such as stronger teeth for breaking open and chewing hard legumes, would become dominant. In this way, you can get one species evolving into two while still living in the same ecosystem.
Originally posted by: pcnerd37
Originally posted by: Zolty
Originally posted by: Citrix
its a theory not fact. there is no proof of evolution.
just like gravity?
We have been wrong about gravity for 300 years. Recent results from experiments based on Einstein's theories have proved that. We have always assuming Newton to be true when actually he was wrong and Einstein was right. I sincerely hope you aren't so naive to think that what we believe to be true now might not be true in 300 years.
But it's as good as we can do. That's always what we can do - our best. Newton's best was good enough for the time. It worked on Earth, and had a very low margin of error for objects moving at non-relativistic speeds. Hell, some simulations of galactic behavior still use Newtonian Physics, if only because calculating gravity's behavior with respect to general relativity would require more powerful computers. (Incidentally, this omission may be responsibile in part to the reason why we "need" dark matter to exist.)
Right now, relativity is the best we can do, and for the most part, it works, and has been proven. GPS satellites rely on precise timing and positioning relative to one another. To do this, they rely on very accurate internal clocks. However, since they are moving at such high speeds as they orbit Earth, if they did not account for general relativity's effects on their clocks, they'd lose a great deal of precision in reporting the location of objects below., such to the point that they'd be completely useless.
Maybe Einstein's theories were only part of the story, just as Newton's were.
Newton's equations worked fine for most calculations here on Earth. Einstein's equations have been tested on small scales on Earth and some in space, and they seem to work. But his equations seem to break down at objects such as black holes. That's where you start hearing talk of quantum gravity and other crazy effects - not really something we can effectively test. Yet.