Theory of [human] evolution

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- Siunaa Maailmaa
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Theory of [human] evolution
OP - March 17, 2014, 06:47 PM

I don't know anything about the theory (theories) of evolution. I know what natural selection means and that's about it.
Can you teach me about it in layman's terms, basic points of it and proof of evolution of HUMANS too. I would like to see what you make of the refuting arguments by creationists/evolutionists who don't believe in HUMAN evolution (such as some muslims).

Thanks.

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Reply #1 - March 17, 2014, 06:48 PM

Did you seriously just type "evolutionists"?

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
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Reply #2 - March 17, 2014, 06:53 PM

Here's a good primer:

Evolution
by QualiaSoup
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdddbYILel0

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Reply #3 - March 17, 2014, 06:55 PM

Quote from: Quod Sum Eris on March 17, 2014, 06:48 PM
Did you seriously just type "evolutionists"?

Yes. What should I call them?
I don't know anything about evolution so to me creationist and person believing in evolution are on the same level. Now, if I grasp the idea of evolution, see the proof and come to see it as truth, I won't call anyone evolutionist anymore.

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Reply #4 - March 17, 2014, 07:02 PM

The whole idea of "believing in" evolution is such a cringe worthy thing to say. No one believes in it, or at least they shouldn't. There are lots of things you can believe in. Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, jinns, gods, afterlife, many things. Evolution is not one of them. It's a proven fact, not a matter of belief.

I don't "believe" in evolution, I simply accept reality.

Is the state of education in Finland really this bad?

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
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Reply #5 - March 17, 2014, 07:23 PM

"Believing" in evolution is like "believing" in pregnancy, or metabolism, or photosynthesis, or [insert observed natural process here].

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Reply #6 - March 17, 2014, 07:31 PM

Siunaa- Ishina's video is good. Do you have more specific questions? Do you need it to be more simple than this? My current focus is in genetics, so I'd reckon I'd know enough to answer most of your questions about evolution.
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Reply #7 - March 17, 2014, 07:35 PM

I believe a bit of evolution like natural selection. But is it possible that we humans have descended from beings that physically resembled the apes in many ways Lua?
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Reply #8 - March 17, 2014, 07:37 PM

It goes further back than that. Also not only is it possible, it's what happened.

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
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Reply #9 - March 17, 2014, 07:53 PM

Rubaya-

Yep. Absolutely. I'm going to try to keep it short, but you can ask if you have questions about specific parts of this, like how we know x or y, like specific techniques and what have you.

So as for human evolution, it wasn't as linear as we popularly imagine. The evidence suggests that many species of early humans have lived and died before we got to the modern humans that we are today. The earliest ones are something like millions of years old.

When you look at the animals that exist today (ourselves included), we represent such an incredibly minor set of the life that has existed on Earth, and so, unsurprisingly, all of the early human species are dead and gone. But there has been enough evidence for us to reasonably determine their age, their locations, their place on our family tree, so to speak, and they have been organized into a handful of groups.

It is strange to imagine this, but think of dogs, if you have a hard time. All dogs come, of course, from common ancestors, but look at those things today! There's giant dogs, dogs that look like wolves, dogs that look like walking mops, little chihuahuas that look like large shaking rats. Now, imagine that, for some reason, none of the dogs are here today except, say, the chihuahua and the wolf. Would you believe that they had a common ancestor? Of course not! That's absurd. How would evolution have made this little mouse of a chihuahua?

The main evidence for our common ancestors is in our DNA. Although, as a general rule, we assume that every individual has unique DNA for most purposes, we can nevertheless examine the genetic code of one species and compare it to another. It just so happens that modern humans have an almost identical genetic code to modern chimps. Does this mean we came directly from chimps? No. It means we're both primates, and that we both evolved, had ancestors, and now we're among the few in our order that remain.
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Reply #10 - March 17, 2014, 08:12 PM

Quote from: Quod Sum Eris on March 17, 2014, 07:02 PM
The whole idea of "believing in" evolution is such a cringe worthy thing to say. No one believes in it, or at least they shouldn't. There are lots of things you can believe in. Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, jinns, gods, afterlife, many things. Evolution is not one of them. It's a proven fact, not a matter of belief.

I don't "believe" in evolution, I simply accept reality.

Is the state of education in Finland really this bad?

I know that scientific facts are not things you "believe in", if they indeed are facts. Now, I can for example see the theory of round earth very clearly from all the evidences I have; therefore I don't "believe" in it, I just need to believe that I can trust the things I have seen. If I now were to accept evolution, I would not actually just accept a fact based on evidence but just take a leap of faith.
I don't know if people believe or "believe" in evolution as I don't have enough knowledge to make conclusion of whether it is based on facts or not. So let's not get caught on whether you can believe in facts or just accept facts, you know very well what I'm talking about.

What I know from school is that majority of scientists accept evolution as explanation of human origins. Were I provided large amount of evidence for evolution in the basic classes in school? No, and why should have they provide for evolution is totally irrelevant thing in the everyday life of average Joe. So maybe Finnish school system is "this bad" but then on the other hand, should schools really concentrate on evolution? It's a thing that you cannot understand and learn within five minutes like the shape of earth.
Theory of evolution is thing that includes large amount of time to really understand, but it doesn't provide much to average person's life. Now I need to know about evolution for religious reasons, so it has became relevant to me, but overall it's quite irrelevant.

According to you, evolution is a thing that doesn't require faith. It's a claim I don't find very odd.
Now, while I don't find it odd or illogical, you still have to know that for me believing your claim that evolution doesn't require faith is believing in the comment of anonymous person online without any reasons to do so.
Like I said, I cannot come to rational conclusion whether evolution requires faith or not before I know enough of evolution.
From the deeper aspects of evolution, I only know natural selection.

I ask many stupid questions frequently.
I am curious, that's why I ask many questions.
I am overly curious, that's why I ask stupid questions.
I lack patience, that's why I ask frequently.
So forgive me and answer me
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Reply #11 - March 17, 2014, 08:13 PM

Quote from: Quod Sum Eris on March 17, 2014, 07:37 PM
It goes further back than that. Also not only is it possible, it's what happened.

It is what is still happening right now.

Humans are breeding all around the world right now, passing their advantages or defects onto their offspring, who will in turn pass them on mixed with some of their own, recombined with the advantages and defects of their partner, for as long as sex is still a thing or as long as beings have the capacity to successfully reproduce. In successive generations, and in the grander scope of time, these changes and diversities, sometimes imperceptible in isolation, will accumulate into more significant and unmistakable change. And in the far future, our descendants will be comparing their bones to those of ours, just as we homo sapiens do with our own bones and those of older hominids. That is assuming we do not completely screw up this ball of rock we call home and that there is a future for our descendants.

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Reply #12 - March 17, 2014, 08:17 PM

I'm now about to look Ishina's video. Questions may arise, questions may be cleared. I probably come back to it tomorrow as I'm about to go to sleep.

Good night everyone, let's stay in peace.

P.S: Never have I claimed that evolution requires faith, I have just said that I cannot say whether it requires or whether it doesn't since I'm ignorant about evolution. Don't hate me for my ignorance because I try to gain knowledge.

I ask many stupid questions frequently.
I am curious, that's why I ask many questions.
I am overly curious, that's why I ask stupid questions.
I lack patience, that's why I ask frequently.
So forgive me and answer me
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Reply #13 - March 17, 2014, 08:19 PM

I don't think anyone hates you, they are just pointing out the facts of the matter.

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Reply #14 - March 17, 2014, 08:32 PM

It's difficult to 'observe' evolution in the way you would 'observe' a round earth or gravity because of the timescale involved. It's a process that took (and continues to take) a very, very long time. I'm a layman with regards to the topic so can't give you a breakdown and how it all went down but to give you some perspective, we took wolves and turned them into Chihuahuas in the space of about 10,000 years through selective breeding. Natural selection has been working for billions of years.

Any theist who refuses to accept evolution on the grounds that they can't 'observe' it should ask themselves why they believe in a god.
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Reply #15 - March 17, 2014, 08:37 PM

No problem, Siunaa.

Quote from: Siunaa Maailmaa on March 17, 2014, 08:12 PM
So maybe Finnish school system is "this bad" but then on the other hand, should schools really concentrate on evolution? It's a thing that you cannot understand and learn within five minutes like the shape of earth.
Theory of evolution is thing that includes large amount of time to really understand, but it doesn't provide much to average person's life. Now I need to know about evolution for religious reasons, so it has became relevant to me, but overall it's quite irrelevant.

As for this, I might have agreed with you a looong time ago before I got into the sciences. But evolution, though very hard to understand, is basically fundamental to our understanding of biology.

I think sometimes of when I was learning algebra in high school. I remember thinking that I would never, ever need to find the equation of a line in the real world. So why did we have to learn this stuff?

The fact of the matter is that good education is not just an assembly line where they equip you with the bare-bones necessities to make it through life. It is a place where we show people, especially kids who will one day take the helm and be the future of science and technology, the things we know in life, the reasons we know them, the questions that we still need to answer. For every few kids like me who resented algebra, there's going to be that one kid who loved that shit, who went on to pursue an education where he needed a basic understanding of the laws of mathematics under his belt, or maybe he even became a great engineer or physicist and advanced our understanding of the field.

Imagine I'm trying to do trigonometry, but I reject the Pythagorean Theorem. Why do I reject it? Either I don't get it, or my religion says a^2+b^2=c^5, so I have to reject it. Either way, screw that thing. But how am I really going to understand simple trigonometry, then? How am I going to understand anything that builds on it? And if you don't understand what we are and how we work on the most basic level, how are you going to understand the complexities of biology? Do you get what I'm saying, Siunaa?

Just because it looks difficult and there's a lot to it doesn't mean it should be ignored, or shouldn't be taught, or can't be understood, or has no practical purpose. And, even if you don't understand why exactly a^2+b^2=c^2, even if the proof of every mathematical equation is beyond you, at a certain point it becomes clear that every time you test it it produces the expected result. Maybe you don't really get evolution, but it has consistently produced the expected results. It is invaluable to a good understanding of nature.
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Reply #16 - March 17, 2014, 08:39 PM

Quote from: kepticsay on March 17, 2014, 08:32 PM
It's difficult to 'observe' evolution in the way you would 'observe' a flat earth or gravity because of the timescale involved. It's a process that took (and continues to take) a very, very long time.

I think I've said it on here before, and I'll say it again. If anyone is in CT and wants to stop by my lab, I will show you evolution in mere days. Bacteria are evolution machines. Stop by, ye doubters, and we can play God for a bit.
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Reply #17 - March 17, 2014, 08:46 PM

Quote from: Siunaa Maailmaa on March 17, 2014, 06:47 PM
I don't know anything about the theory (theories) of evolution. I know what natural selection means and that's about it.
Can you teach me about it in layman's terms, basic points of it and proof of evolution of HUMANS too. I would like to see what you make of the refuting arguments by creationists/evolutionists who don't believe in HUMAN evolution (such as some muslims).

Thanks.

So, humans are different? Read this:

Quote from: happymurtad on December 01, 2012, 03:40 PM
The new focus among this generation of Muslim apologists seems to be accepting evolution for all species with the exception of human beings. I watched a couple of clips on youtube with Abdurraheem Green and Yasir Qadi saying that Muslims can accept evolution in all animals except for humans, since there is nothing in the Qur’an or Sunnah to disprove that other species evolved.

Of course, that argument is complete nonsense. It’s like saying “Well, I have no problems believing that all modern dogs have evolved from ancient wolf ancestors, since that is what the fossil record, DNA evidence, geological evidence, and scientific consensus all point to…EXCEPT for poodles! I have to believe that poodles were magically created by fairies!”

Now, think about how offspring are always slightly different to their parents, then try to figure out how evolution could not happen.

What is going to stop it? How would it stop it? If you can't answer those questions, you're pretty much stuck with evolution.

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Reply #18 - March 17, 2014, 08:48 PM

Quote from: lua on March 17, 2014, 08:37 PM
No problem, Siunaa.

As for this, I might have agreed with you a looong time ago before I got into the sciences. But evolution, though very hard to understand, is basically fundamental to our understanding of biology.

Thing is, it's really not difficult to understand. Sure, you can spend years on the details, but the basics of it are dead simple.

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Reply #19 - March 17, 2014, 08:50 PM

I guess it depends on if you want the short answer or long answer, osmanthus.
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Reply #20 - March 17, 2014, 08:52 PM

Somehow I don't think he wants the long answer.

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Reply #21 - March 17, 2014, 08:54 PM

Or worse! The short answer with the justifications and proofs of the long answer.
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Reply #22 - March 17, 2014, 09:00 PM

That's what people usually want: everything in one soundbite they don't have to think about. That's why various forms of science denial are so tenacious.

(well, one reason why)

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Reply #23 - March 17, 2014, 09:06 PM

I looked the video by Ishina. Greatly narrated and clear video.
I think that maybe my view of being ignorant of evolution is different from you [all]. I never have thought: "If humans came from apes then why there are apes" or "How could we just accidentally become these very evolved animals?", or "It's just a theory".
I meant by ignorance of evolution that I don't really know much of evidence for it nor I understand deeper aspects of it such as DNA's code (or whichever it is) and how there are supposed links between DNA of human and DNA of ape etc.

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I lack patience, that's why I ask frequently.
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Reply #24 - March 17, 2014, 09:11 PM

Well, that's fair and well, Siunaa. I think we just react quickly when someone says they don't believe in evolution, because it is usually for a silly reason.

In your case, perhaps it is more fair to say that you simply do not know enough about evolution to have an opinion on it, rather than not believing in it?

But, like I said, Siunaa, feel free to throw any questions my way, and I'll see what I can do with them. Surely there are other people on this forum who were/are educated in the subject and can chip in, too.
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Reply #25 - March 17, 2014, 09:35 PM

DNA Structure and Replication: Crash Course Biology #10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kK2zwjRV0M

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Reply #26 - March 17, 2014, 11:21 PM

^ Oh, wow. That was the cutest thing.

Watch it, Siunaa. It is adorable. Correct and adorable.
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Reply #27 - March 18, 2014, 08:17 PM

That might be a bit technical for someone not familiar with the terminology.

Here's some decent entry-level primers:

What is DNA?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwibgNGe4aY
What is a gene?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MQdXjRPHmQ
What is Evolution?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhHOjC4oxh8
What is Natural Selection?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SCjhI86grU

By Stated Clearly - Defend Evolution With Clear Friendly Instruction

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Reply #28 - March 18, 2014, 11:07 PM

Episode 2 ofthe new Cosmos explains it quite well...
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Reply #29 - March 19, 2014, 01:04 AM

Darwin? DarEPICwin, more like!
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