Do you "believe" in DNA? It's real or it ain't. Folks have been executed for crimes based on it. That's some seriously messed up fairy tails if it isn't true.

Todd,

We are obviously not in agreement on this particular issue of evolution...which is fine. But I do have a serious question for you (or others):

Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species


Reproduction between different species within the same genus and even within the same family is possible. We all know that dogs can breed with other canine kinds within the family, same with cats, cattle, horses, etc... But can two DIFFERENT kinds reproduce?

Mammals for example. Can an elephant reproduce with some non elephant kind? Can a cat reproduce with a canine? Cow and a horse?

Repeat with every other family group of vertebrates and invertebrates. Can a python reproduce with an iguana? How about with a catfish? Can a crawfish mate with a mussel?

Wild examples I know, but I listed this on purpose. Y'all correct me if I'm inaccurate or way wrong. But there has never been any evidence in nature that members of different Family classifications can reproduce. Correct? All of our modern science has said that this is not possible. Correct?

So how is it that evolution theory proposes just such leaps for ages past? Mutations somehow managed to do all of this with such complexity?

Why is it that a gathering of 2 of every kind of animal (kind meaning family or genus) that would then populate the earth is seen as a fairy tale by so many?

Observable and testable evidence shows what and predicts what? It shows exactly what we know...only members of the same kind up to the family level are even compatible to reproduce...and design generally keeps that restrained to the genus level...and design even further keeps that typically to a species level.

Curious about y'alls thoughts.

Of course I trust DNA. I just like being difficult sometimes.

things need to speed up, with our ever-increasing mobility and our reliability on fossil fuels, we need babies to start being born with wings so we can save our planet from global warming. .cough,cough..excuse me, climate change

Let's start with this.....From my understanding, the way evolution occurs is not really by animals slowly morphing into something different but rather by each species throwing out a few individuals that are different than the group and natural selection favoring those few individuals. When environmental conditions change, then the animals in the group that are best suited to handle that change survive and pass on their genes. For example, it’s like if a species of bird all have short beaks except for a few anomalies with long beaks. Let’s say there’s some type of environmental event that leaves the flock in a condition where only the birds with long beaks are able to reach food….they live while the others perish. That's natural selection and how species change over time.

Is this your understanding of it too?

Here’s where I’m eventually going Straycat……..

I think man has changed over time through the same process. Early prehistoric man changed because of environmental conditions and natural selection like all the other animals would have. We were tied to nature as much as any of them back then. Let’s look at human tools and technology though to see where things changed.

We can without a doubt look at the human race and see that we are progressing over time and expanding our knowledge of technology and the world around us. We can follow it back in time as well moving back step by step along a timeline. You would have milestones on that timeline from recent ones like man learning to fly……moving back in time to ones like man learning to use metals……man learning to farm…..man inventing the wheel…..and on and on backwards in time.

If we keep following that timeline backwards then it has to lead us to one place……And that’s to the first pre-historic ancestor of man that picked up a stick and rock and used it as a tool. That separation in evolution took place in the brain. It’s where we separated ourselves from the other animals through “knowledge” as it says in Genesis. It’s what has driven our evolution as a species ever since.

Thoughts?

There has never been a mutation observed where information was added to the genetic code, it's ALWAYS as loss of information hence a MUTATION of the original. This is totally in conflict with evolution. This is something that can be observed but is totally ignored and the mutations are always put forth as a progression of sorts...they know it's a lie because it is observable.

Yes, but that is not evolution as taught in our schools today. That is simply adaption where a species best adapts to it's environment through the process that you have laid out. This is also referred to as micro evolution. This is often used as a straw-man argument that say "since we see changes within a species evolution between species must be true".

I understand what you are saying and on the surface it seems potentially possible. But if you look deeper it really starts to unravel quickly. You must understand that evolutionary theory is all about the "tree"...organisms slow developing into new and different organisms over long ages, spreading like a family does (visually)...this is all about how one gob of cells turned into something more advance, then all kinds of splits and eventually to us right now...the human is as advanced evolutionary wise as today's tiger or chimp or lobster. This is how evolution works under the widely praised and accepted common descent theory/ aka self titled "fact".

Animals species gradually changing due to environmental factors and some gene mutations within their own species is not "common descent macro evolution" which is what is the mainstream evolutionary thought. That is more micro in nature, adaptation, variation, etc... I have no problems with this because it can be actually studied, observed and tested.

When we stretch out to broad brush these series of slow changes to turn into completely new Family groups that never existed before...then there is no objective real evidence to support it at all. There is subjective evidence, manipulated evidence, wishful thinking evidence, and simple "it just has to be so it is" evidence. Where is the real evidence of all this morphing and changing other that intellectual theory and flow charts? It just doesn't exist.

Prehistoric mankind...was some less advanced version of ourselves...not human like we are and descendended form chimps or apes which descended from some other creatue and so on? Poof...some factors and variables and a huge amount of years later here we is!! Where is the proof or evidence of this happening?

Historical science cannot be observed, tested or repeated, only the cold dead evidences in the ground normally. No one was there to view the life, and what went down. So from a few skulls, a leg bone here and there, maybe a tooth---this field of science writes an entire origins narrative on how man came into existence??? Really? These skull differences...why aren't they just adaptation and variation? How do the scientists know from a few dried bones what those remains represented: looks, thoughts, communication, emotions, work, community?? They don't, so they guess.

Now sure, all animal kinds including humans share certain traits to some degree. Mammals have many commonalities...that's what they are in the mammal classification. Just because we have hair, digits, teeth, walk upright, have faces, and poop our of our buts...that doesn't mean we are in the lineage of chimps or apes.

The bottom line on my thoughts are that this is all just theory from the evolutionary viewpoint. The scientists kind of own their little world so they all agree that it is basically fact. So that gets sent to the textbooks...then to the media...then to the students...ad eventually you have this overwhelming force that is anti-creationism.

Interesting re: Africa based

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/22/europe-birthplace-mankind-not-africa-scientists-find/

Another really funny article on this. A jaw from Greece and atooth from Bulgaria found in some dig has now potentially altered everything known about the origins of humans. They even went so far as to say man descended directly from these early hominids....had artists draw up a face too. Hilarious.

Hold up a minute now. I think I made a very good point and you’re just quickly dismissing it with two sentences. Before we start digging deeper…...let’s hash out the things that we can see to be true with our own eyes. On the topic of tools and technology…… Do you or do you not think we can trace the evolution of knowledge back to that one point in time like I explained?

We didn’t just come out of the gate knowing how to rub sticks together and make fire. All of that is on a timeline. One that has to lead us back to the beginning of modern man….No? I’m guessing that the first ancestor of modern man to pick up a stick and use it as a tool was not nearly as advanced as today’s human. Isn’t it likely he was more like an animal than a man at that point? How can you explain this progression of knowledge that we can see today if it doesn’t lead back to extremely primitive beginnings?

A good point can still be false in reality. That's all I'm saying.

Intelligence and tools are two different things.

As a believer of God creating us in his image, I figure He endowed the first family with certain knowledge. so yes, right out of the gate they were able to survive and thrive even enduring the hardships.

Think how smart our men of antiquity were to figure out how to make iron tools, aqaducts and later build pyramids and the coliseum and so on without modern tools and electronics.

Their wooden shovels and hoes keep breaking...so they find this ore and heat it and shape it and treat it for implements. On their own. The architecture and engineering feats rival most anything today if you consider they did it without computers or modern tools.

No it isn't likely man was more animal. Probably much more skilled in hunting, trapping and fighting than we are today. I completely reject that notion of some apeish/animal being our predecessors.

When I read the first paragraphs of Genesis….I don’t see where the Big Bang Theory and Evolution conflict so badly with what the Bible says.. Look what it tells us ……

In the beginning there was formless darkness until God said let there be light……Boom!, the light….the big bang……..Then he separated the light from the darkness...we start getting day and night…...oceans and land begin to arise……..vegetation begins to cover the Earth……All of this unfolding right in line with the idea of things starting from a Big Bang of light and progressing or forming from that point….It even says next that he created the creatures in the water first before then letting the land fill with every creature of their kind…..That seems to me to be exactly what evolution is telling us as well…..life started in the ocean before the land……Then after the other animals were already here…..”Man” arrives on the scene…..This is where we split and became more than just another animal through “knowledge” and the special evolutionary path of our brains. .

To say that God created man does not have to mean that poof he made man like pulling a rabbit out of a hat….Man could have very well emerged from the blue print that was already unfolding on Earth and he still would have been made by God….. Maybe the whole blueprint of our existence from beginning to end was already written at the moment he said let there be light…… Maybe God’s hand just set it all in motion and his design created it all in a chain reaction of events that unfolded over millions of years and is still unfolding today. You can look at nature and see that there’s a blueprint. I don’t see where the ideas of evolution and the big bang have to conflict so bad with religion.

Back to you........

This is kinda where my head is at

The evolution of man explained in the best ever way possible. All of you can relate in some form or other. Those of you that can't you will soon. The evolution of man is based on the wants and needs of women. That's all there is you need to know. Women run the world and we make it happen for them. I would also say that this pertains to all life on earth.

CNC,

If you are going to use Genesis, then use it all. Don't cherry pick what fits best with your ideas and ignore the rest.

Gen 1:day 5 creatures of the seas and birds created.
Gen 1: day 6 all the creatures of the dry land, plus the specific creation of man and woman in "our" image, being the trinity.

The bible is very specific in time: day and evening mark a day. The Hebrew word is "yom" which means day. Now day has various meanings. A specific period of time as in 24 hours; an era like "back in the day"; or future tense as in "one day...". Yom when used with references to light and dark/morning and evening/or a number in the Hebrew language ALWAYS WITHOUT EXCEPTION refers to a literal 24 hour period--an actual day.

So is Genesis literal or figurative? If it is merely figurative then one can make all kinds of evolution claims within intelligent design parameters.

But even that causes a theological problem, if one cares about theology: What God, Jesus Christ actually, created was glorious and perfect. Then sin entered in Eden and man fell and suffered the curse of God. From the beginning, Christ was to pay the atoning sacrifice. If millions of years had transpired before and man arose not from God's breath but thru mutations in ape creatures...death already firmly in place....then the need for Jesus Christ and his death on the cross vanishes. How do you account for that hurdle?

Your turn.

Who is credited author of Genesis? Moses?

(Honest question)

A man and the bible has been translated and passed from one hand to the next like any other story. Religion and the way it's delivered changes to suit needs. Now do I fear God? Yes. Do I believe all of the stories/tales/fables? The jury is still out.

Also I thought this discussion was not meant to go biblical. So much for that

Yes, Moses is considered the person that God used to write what He intended to give His chosen people, Israel according to Nehemiah 8:1.

Jesus confirms the authority of all the old testament in multiple places and specifically Moses as the "writer" of the Law of Moses (first 5 books).