What are the dumbest attempts to find fault in the theory of evolution you've heard?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Dr Lou Natic, Aug 30, 2003.

  1. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

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    To me, nothing is as frustrating as seeing people use their own ignorance as a form of debate.

    I've heard so many hilariously stupid attempts to debunk evolution, here are but a few;

    Why has evolution stopped happening now?
    Hey yeah, last week iguanas were the same as they are this week, whats going on?

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    A new one I heard just today;
    Why are humans the only animal with human intelligence?
    Hmmm, good point, I wonder why elephants don't have HUMAN intelligence? They have elephant intelligence for some reason, clearly evolution doesn't make sense

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    And of course;
    If humans evolved from apes, and there are still apes, why aren't there half ape half human animals?

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    What others have you heard? And should people like this be culled? Think about the statement that would make, we would be purposelly evolving ourselves into a species that could understand evolution hahaha.
     
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  3. sargentlard Save the whales motherfucker Valued Senior Member

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    I have heard a women say that she believes carbon dating is a hack and totally useless. She believes the Earth is only 50,000 years old. The sad part is she is being very serious when she says this.

    Offtopic? yes, amazingly baffling? yes.
     
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  5. gendanken Ruler of All the Lands Valued Senior Member

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    Dr.:
    Do tell these chumps that for centuries Europeans believed that all swans were white until Australia was discovered and lo and behold there were black ones.


    As of now, researchers in Africa and India are intrigued at the rise of elephant males born without tusks. Evolution would have that these are protective measures against poaching but all the creationists and naysayers believe what they want anyway.

    Bosh. The American south is teeming with half-breeds.
     
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  7. gendanken Ruler of All the Lands Valued Senior Member

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    OH OH OH OH OH
    I missed this delicious little piece:
    "There is no way I'm an animal because Chubby (a dog) can't and will never sit at the table and have a nice conversation like Joe can"
    - my father.

    Sincerely shit you not, this is what the man said to me.
     
  8. Xev Registered Senior Member

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    Idiot co-worker:

    "Humans aren't animals because we have morals and animals don't."

    Yes, cull them.
     
  9. Zero Banned Banned

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    Or how about this, the essence of it all.

    "Because God said so."
     
  10. static76 The Man, The Myth, The Legend Registered Senior Member

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  11. SwedishFish Conspirator Registered Senior Member

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    "Why are humans the only animal with human intelligence?"

    this reminded me of a story, but i thought telling it would give a clue to my identity away. after the thing with spuriousmonkey, i'm no longer afraid of letting out personal information because apparently it already is available to anyone on the internet. yikes. anyhoo, here goes:
    a professor of mine who is highly esteemed in biology was invited to meet with a particular chimp. this chimp could speak sign language and the prof would be able to communicate with her through an interpretter. she had only carried through one full term pregnancy but the baby queened during birth, cracking it's head and dying. they were unable to get her to breed successfully after that. when prof went to see her, the chimp asked her (in sign language) if she had any children. prof told her 'yes i do, i have two beautiful girls'. then the chimp asked "where are my children? why don't i have any children?"
     
  12. Teri Curious Registered Senior Member

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    I liked that story SwedisFish, do you know anymore about that?
     
  13. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

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    What do you know, I've been set on rant mode, must be a leap year

    I wouldn't say I like that story, I do find it incredibly depressing though, I guess thats something.

    Its a little bit of insight into the psyche of a chimpanzee which is interesting, it shows what I have always suspected that knowledge is comfort and confusion magnifies suffering.
    It makes me so mad when I see people "demanding justice" or "closure", as though it is their god given right to get such great gifts, having it be known that you are suffering is a greater gift than other animals could hope for and there is alot to be said for that gift, think of the chimps(and other animals for that matter) out there that have lost loved ones, they get the intensely shocking grief and confusion and none of the benefits that come with being human.

    Elephants seem to understand death, but chimps do not, I have seen a young chimp find his dead mother on a river bank, poke it with a trembling hand, walk off shakily, climb a tree and stare off into his thoughts untill he died a week or so later in that exact spot, litterally of grief.
    His face said it all, it was the recognisable primate face of "what the fuck?". I believe no human could possibly understand the suffering that chimp experienced. The list of benefits we have in times of suffering is too long to mention and even I, who spend much thought on such things, could not think of them all.

    We take our knowledge and level of understanding for granted. No matter what we are faced with our understanding can comfort us. If I found my dead mother on a river bank I would be sad and my sufferring would be significant, but I would know that people die and this is not a bizarre occurence, the possibility was always there and I would understand that. Plus chances are I could let it be known that my mother died and I would be treated as such. I would be comforted profusely and the knowledge that people feel sorry for me would secretly be justification. No other animal gets all this.

    I think this gives us as a species a certain punching bag quality. We can recieve sufferring far easier than other animals and this is why I find it hard to sympathise with humans.
    The phrase "get over it pussy" comes to mind whenever I see people complaining over their rough deal. Something about us reminds me of that spoilt kid we've all seen with the alligator tears and the tiny cut on his finger. I know how "horrible" it is to be a human so I know they are whining about nothing. We are the big kids and our crying is starting to standout on the playground and make us look pathetic.

    the question is not 'can they reason' or 'can they use abstract thought', but can they suffer?- some guy

    Good point and the answer is yes, in fact they can suffer to a much more severe extent than we can, which to me automatically puts mistreating animals at the top of the list of most dispicable activities one could possibly partake in.

    Off-topic, but its how the cookie crumbled.

    Gendanken;
    I heard that about elephants, quite disgusting considering those tusks evolved for a reason, now their lives must be hindered due to our greed. Not that this would justify it by any means any way but who NEEDS ivory? really

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    Also I have heard elephants are hiding the tusks of their deceased loved ones from poachers, this signifies something substantial. Now we know they are suffering in wondering what we want their tusks for, they know they are being raped and spat out by an unstoppable monster that is above any of their laws. We can't possibly relate to that. Jews in concentration camps can't possibly relate to that.
    And yet the most a poacher would cop is a fine and *gasp* possibly jail time.... its a joke.
    Its like if a group of boys brutally murdered a child and their only punishment was their parents telling them they "shouldn't have done that" while trying to hold back laughter over the boys' lovable antics. It ends with a tussle of the hair and a reassuring "now get of here ya rascal".
    Commit the most dispicable crime known to earth and get a slap on the wrist with a padded glove. We suck.

    I once said I am not ashamed or proud of our species because for either of those feelings there would need to be an outside party witnessing our high and low points.
    I realise now that animals are noticing our actions, and loathing them.
    So now I guess I can officially say that I am ashamed to be human.
    Very ashamed.
    There is no dignity to be had by any of us. This is why I can't wait to be eaten, it will be the pinnacle of my existence.
     
  14. Pollux V Ra Bless America Registered Senior Member

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    I don't know where, but I heard somewhere that humans were the only species on the planet that had or were going to have the power to give life to species or the power to take it away, in order to, in the long run, protect the health of the planet itself. That isn't happening yet, and in spite of the long way we have to go I think we have progressed. At the moment we're using that power to kill animals for their food or something valuable that's a part of their body, when instead we should be trying to preserve the environment as much as [humanly] possible.

    A silly argument I heard? I was bored six or seven months ago, so I went on a teen msn chat room and wound up talking to someone who didn't believe in evolution. She just flat out didn't believe it, that the theory of...what's that theory called, when the older things are at the bottom and the newer things are at the top?--so, anyway, a few months or weeks later I talked to her again, and she decided to believe in what she called "microevolution" which is just evolution on a small scale, like a butterfly going from white to black, but not a butterfly turning into a giant floating insect monster a few million years down the line. To me it was just like watching two or three frames of footage in an entire movie (made up of tens of thousands of frames, at an average of 18 frames per second).

    And yeah, swede, that was a cool story.
     
  15. moementum7 ~^~You First~^~ Registered Senior Member

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    *There is no dignity to be had by any of us.*
    WO wo wo, there Dr.
    Speak for yourself.

    Your begining to sound like a marter.
    Taking on the guilt and blame of other peoples retarded actions and uneducated choices.

    Having beleifs like this is going to prevent you from ever taking action on any circumstances you deem as having value.

    Desire without action breeds pestilence my friend.
    Consider this a request to be taken off your world view please.
    Thanks.

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  16. Raithere plagued by infinities Valued Senior Member

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    The worst one I've ever heard was that God put fossils in the Earth to test our faith.
    Personally, I'd find it quite disturbing to think that God was deliberately deceiving us.

    ~Raithere
     
  17. truth Registered Senior Member

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    It is an unprovable theory. You cannot prove it happened and you cannot prove it did not. Darwin had his finches, at most it proves an adaptation, the least, they were always that way. As to one species evolving in to another, I personally think that stringing different simian type creatures, hominids, etc. together and saying here is how humans came about is stretching it. These things existed, I have no doubt, but to argue they are human progenitors is pretty weak. I guess conversely, tell me why I should believe. I agree that some of the reasons against previously stated are weak, tell me why.
     
  18. Repo Man Valued Senior Member

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    Truth, the reason for accepting evolution is that it is the only credible explanation for the development of life we humans have.
     
  19. Persol I am the great and mighty Zo. Registered Senior Member

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    Truth,
    I'll answer the question with a question. Given that you accept adaptations are possible, what is to stop a species from adapting so much that it is seen as another species?
     
  20. truth Registered Senior Member

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    Given adaptation, if a bird's bill changes, it is still a bird. In an example above, if an elephant loses it tusks, it is still an elephant. Genetic mutation, becomes a dominant gene, and therefore reproduced. To me an animal is still an animal. To argue humans originated from some primitive hominid based on sometimes nothing more than a few bone fragments and some alleged tools at a site and then jump 1.5 million years ahead and say this new group came from this other is specious at best.

    I am not saying it did not happen, I am saying it cannot be proven and the idea that evolution is so often argued as factual when I do not honestly see the evidence bearing it out does not allow me to lend it much credence. When I see new discoveries reported or scientific analysis on it, I look at it, analyze it, and see if it fits. At this point it does not.

    Not to criticize repo man, but that argument holds less water then saying God created man. People once believed in spontaneous generation, for example, rotting meat brought forth flies. We know that is not true, to argue evolution is the way is a bit arrogant.
     
  21. Pollux V Ra Bless America Registered Senior Member

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    That's a gross exaggeration. There were not alleged tools, the rocks that have been found could not have been made any other way. In the website I provide later, if you look you'll find that they found 300 skeletons of one of our oldest ancestors, Australopithecus afarensis.

    Here's my evidence in favor of human evolution, showing the adaptation of the primates over the course of five million years. It can be demonstrated thus by stringing together pictures of the human skulls themselves, and by using the theory of superposition to show how the more ape-like skulls are older and how the human-like skulls are more recent. I tried doing so but I posted too many pictures, it was impossible. The best site I've found for taking a look at the human evolutionary tree follows this paragraph.

    SOURCE

    This is what I just tried to do, however I have not yet proven my point. These species, in the forms theorized by modern day scientists or in similar forms obviously existed, and probably existed close to or at the times described. My question for you is--what happened to them? Did they go extinct, convienently as their evolutionary betters appeared? Or did they change, and adapt, one generation after the next?--they didn't go extinct, we're them. The Neanderthals went extinct, but they were our cousins, not our ancestors (in fact, we may have had a hand in their destruction). The Dinosaurs went extinct, their line is only present in modern day birds. Our ancestors did also go extinct, in a way, but their spawn lived on, changed, adapted, evolved, into our being today. The best fit and most sexually attractive members of previous species survived because they were smart, because they ate protein-rich meat, and that gave rise to us.

    The most common misinterpretation regarding evolution is that outside forces directly effect it--i.e, if we cut off a mouse's tail, the next generation of mice will not have tails. This does not happen, in fact an experiment to see if it did in fact happened was undertaken, and after 500 generations of mice, each one with its tail cut off, there were absolutely no results. Evolution occurs when the most-fit members of a species survive to procreate. The faster birds can outrun predators, when they procreate, their descendents will be faster. The smarter humans can outhink predators and bring down large prey together, their descendents will go to the moon. I'd like to see a source on the male elephants not being born with tusks, I can't say that I believe it.

    My question for you is, if you don't believe in this theory, which is clearly the best, what do you believe in? What fits this puzzle better?

    edit: by the way, your argument is the same as microevolution's. You're looking at only a few frames of an entire movie.
     
  22. Esoteric Tragic Hero Registered Senior Member

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    http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D4FEC-7D5B-1D07-8E49809EC588EEDF&pageNumber=1&catID=2

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2978800.stm
     
  23. CrystalBiology Banned Banned

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    5
    Hi.

    Those of us who are intelligent enough to actually know what Evolution is, and to study it find it quite obviously true.

    Evolution has as much (if not more) evidence to support it as any scientific theory or law.

    Multiply the number of known species of life (millions), times perhaps 20 pages on average, and you've got the entirety of evidence for evolution. This is true because every known species of life has been shown to exhibit evolution.

    For those of you who are bad at math - that's over 20 million pages of evidence, not only that evolution occurs, but that it occurs in every species ever documented by science.

    So how many pages do we have, of scientific evidence to support ANY THEORY other than evolution - not just creationism?

    Not a page, not a sentence, not a word, not a even a convincing smiley

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    Hmmmm.......what a hard decision.
     

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