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FeyOberon (Offline)
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Posts: 83
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Southwestern USA
05-21-2009, 10:44 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by MMM View Post
1) All living things come from other living things. All living things have a "parent"

2) Animals are not as "different" as those who don't believe in evolution like to think. You can say monkeys are different from dogs that are different from whales. But these creatures do share similar traits. They all have spines, for example. In fact the animal world is divided into 2: vertebrates and invertebrates. With or without a spine.

3) Simple plants and animals existed long before complex ones. The fossil record shows this.
1) I'm not entirely sure how this point relates to anything that has been said recently. Of course all things living on the earth are the offspring of their predecessors -- that really goes without saying, I would hope. If you are alluding to the absolute origin of life, however, then the first "parents" had to have come from somewhere. You will not find a person anywhere who claims to be a scientist and believes that life on earth has always existed.

2) Yes, monkeys and dogs and whales all have spines and hair, are mammals, are bilaterally symmetric, and share numerous other traits. And, yes, the animal world is categorized by Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species based on similar trates among different species. But your point is overly simplistic in that there are irreconcilable differences between different species on a cellular and DNA level. I took biology also, so please don't patronize me.

My point with the viruses was not that two different strains of virus (or viruses compared with bacteria or anything else not viral) are so different from one another. Rather, my point was that, no matter how small the difference between two different organizims, one will never change into the other. My point was that your example of viral "evolution" is not evolution at all.

3) The age of fossils, and, by extension, the plants and animals you refer to, is determined by radiocarbon dating -- an imperfect dating method that cannot provide an accurate age without knowledge of unknowable variables from the past. Also, even today, simple plants and animals are much more likely to encounter circumstances that would lead to fossilization than are complex life forms.

And @ iPhantom: This is what I meant -- Even scientists don't have a theory as to where matter originated from. The Big Bang theory requires a dense mass to be in existence before the big bang occurred. Because "science" has not provided an explanation, theorizing about the source of matter boils down to "I think *fill in the blank* is the answer." Each individual decides for himself what he thinks the answer is. That is his belief.

I would really like to continue this discussion! I'll try to check back this weekend (I can't tomorrow).