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He made man from dust directly, otherwise the Bible would've said that God made apes from dust and out of apes evolved humans, bit it doensn't.

I'm just wondering what the exact verse was, word-for-word. If I remember correctly, it was basically god made people from dust. It didn't say exactly how. The bible lacks a description of Jesus Christ, so why wouldn't it lack a description of how humans evolved from apes?

Well. I'm not saying you have any of these misconceptions, but a lot of people do so let me explain.

People think that since evolution is a theory, it's just an idea someone came up with and therefore is on equal par with any explanation of how everything came to be. Evolution is a theory, but something can be a theory and also a fact. I don't know why people are using this as an arguement against evolution, it is actually an arguement for evolution. Something needs to be a credible, tested idea to have 'theory' status. Creationism isn't a theory. Not saying it's bad, it just requires faith, not scientific evidence.

People think that evolution states that we evolved from modern monkeys. And they ask questions such as "Why aren't monkeys evolving now?" The theory of evolution does not state that we evolved from monkeys.

People get confused about how evolution works. Ape 1 gives birth to a genetically mutated ape with a slightly larger skull or less hair or slightly smarter etc. This is Ape 2. Ape 2 passes on it's genetic mutation to its children. Ape 3 and Ape 4. Ape 3 has a genetic mutation that causes it to be slower. Ape 4 has a genetic mutation that causes it to be even smarter than Ape 2. Ape 3 dies because of its slowness before it gets the chance to reproduce, therefore Ape 3's genes are eliminated from the gene pool. Ape 4 lives a very long life and has many offspring. Those offspring carry Ape 4's helpful mutation. By the time we're at Ape 36, you've got an entirely new species. Survival of the fittest. Of course, this happens over millions of years, so you'd probably be at more than Ape 36 before you saw a new species.

The evolution from apes to humans basically goes like this:

ape predecessor
oooooooo|
oooooooo|
oooooooo|_
ooooooo/oo|_
oooooo/oooo|_
ooooo/ooooooo|
ooo(early)ooo(early monkeys)
o(humans)oooo|
oooo|oooooooo|
oooo|oooooooo|
ooo/|oooooooo.|
oooo|oooooooo|
ooo/|oooooooo|
oooo|oooooooo|
Modern man omodern monkeys



Well, that's not exact and I sort of generalized about monkeys because I don't really know much about them. But I do know at least some about early humans. There were a lot of different species of early humans. I don't really know if species is the right word, though. They were all of the genus Homo. The hominids. We didn't evolve from chimpanzees, because chimpanzees are a modern species of monkey. We just descended from a common ancestor, which is why our DNA is so similiar.

Australopithicus (sp?) fossils were found in Africa. They are the earliest known humans, I think.

Homo Habilis, for example, I think was at least partially tree-dwelling. But that might be a lie, since it's been a long time. They were slouched, and hairy. They used simple tools.

Homo Erectus walked upright, hence 'Erectus'. I'm pretty sure Homo Erectus discovered fire.

Neanderthals, I can't remember where exactly they go in the timeline. They were the first to mourn their dead.

And evolution has a lot of branches off the main path that didn't work out. Some mutations continue for a while, but they aren't especially beneficial.

I believe that neanderthals might actually be one of those branches that didn't work out, but that at some point a different species of human bred with neanderthals and now we actually have some neanderthal DNA.

I don't think that you can extract DNA from fossils. They rely on carbon-dating and structural evidence to piece together how long ago something lived, and what it might have looked like. And there is also other things that are found with fossils that you can piece together how they behaved and what they did.

The problem with the theory that neanderthals were very very old people is that carbon dating reveals things to be millions of years old. And creationism states that the Earth is only about six-thousand years old at the most.

It's a direct contradiction. There's only three ways this could work.

Creationism is not true. It directly contradicts science.

Evolution is not true. It doesn't matter in what way, you just have to have faith that creationism is true.

Carbon-dating is fundamentally flawed (you'd have a hard time with this one.)

And that's my long explanation of evolution and such. I hope I didn't confuse everyone. Or bore you. Or anything. sweatdrop

It's a theory. Just not a scientific theory.

Scientific theory: a set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

Theory: a set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

I didn't mean it wasn't credible, I just mean you can't test it scientifically. That's all. Sorry to confuse you.



Well. I haven't heard of any scientific evidence for creationism. Scientific explanations, yes. But scientific evidence, no. If you can show me some I'd be obliged to change my position on that matter.

What I mean is that people have offered up scientific justification, a way it could have happened. With dinosaurs co-existing with people, and the canopy of water and ice that allowed people to live weirdly long amounts of time and all that. It's still not science exactly, but it's creation science. So, whatever.

But there is no scientific evidence that the Earth actually is 6000 years old.

So is that supposed to be an insult? Well you're just a big old creationist! dramallama

I don't know if that was supposed to funny or insulting, but I laughed...

ninja ....creationist. xd

Thanks Fushigi, I was about to step in but you def. beat me to the punch.

Anyway. I think the general theory of evolution, as Captain explained it, is quite plausible and there's a lot of evidence to support it. There's there finches in this island off a New Guinea and scientists have been studying them for a while asnd we've actually seen the extinction of one species and the development of another. Plus I think the idea of completely denying the idea of evolution is just basically sticking our heads in the ground. We're closing out ears and eyes to God's glory. Is it such a leap of faith to say that God maybe created us with the ability to adapt to our surroundings? I don't think so.

I think the biggest reason people have a problem with the theory of evolution is that it puts us on the level of animals. Humans have this complex that because we're humans we're the smartest bewings on this earth, and to put is on the same level as monkeys makes up stupid. I honestly don't believe humans are the smartest beigns alive. Just because we've been able to invent and create all this stuff, doesn't mean we're the smartest. I think we're up there, you know, intelligent and stuff. But the smartest, maybe not.

However, I think that God loves us a great deal. I believe that Jesus died specifically for us, not for all the animals. We are sinful, while animals are not.