Could you explain this? I don't understand. What accidents are you talking about? The creation of life through abiogenesis?

Evolution is a theory that is just about accepted as scientific law at this point. The evidence is irrefutable. Anyone who disagrees with it, as Detty said, after being properly taught about it, is an idiot.

Not true. I've heard some people that voted for Hillary saying this type of stuff.

I think it would be good to clarify to what extent you think someone has to support it. Most reasonable people believe in the fundamentals of evolution but not necessarily in the macro-idea that "man evolved from apes". I just don't think it is fair to denigrate people who might not believe in that aspect.

Man didn't evolve from apes. Apes and man evolved separately from a common ancestor. To deny this is to absolutely ignore fossil records, remnants of genes that we hold in common with apes, and the very differences the people of this world have between each other.

I'd bet if you weren't worried about understanding and believing something that slightly disagrees with the fairy tale parts of your religion, it'd be a lot easier. Don't take that the wrong way, either. I'm saying that you've got a pretty weak faith if it hinges on the idea that God made everything in 7 days and that the entire Adam and Eve story is factual. Simply because mankind hasn't looked and acted the same way over the span of our existence, before breaking off into our specific species, doesn't mean that your religion is null and void. It just means that your religion is generalizing everything.

Imagine God taking the first male and the first female humans (ones that resemble what we know as humans today, that had evolved from "apes" as you put it) and placed them in the garden of Eden? Is that so hard to believe?

That's a bastardization of the theory of evolution--it's like Kirby said. Also, it's kinda stupid to think one part of a theory's true and another isn't, don't you think? I mean, that's like saying "Alright guys, so anything in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force, but a falling body will keep accelerating until it breaks the speed of light" to be kinda loose analogously, but you get the picture.

Of course it is, because the only people that don't believe in that aspect are people that are afraid of questioning the literal interpretation of their religion.

Wouldn't that simply be another theory?

Eh?

Yes, but without scientific or really ANY kind of research to back up your new theory, what good would it be? Also, I'm trying to keep religion and science separate because most people try to make them two completely different takes on one item (though it doesn't have to be that way).

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-02-09-creationismUK_N.htm?csp=34

Damn you Europeans are nuts.

I don't understand this micro vs macro bs. It's like creationists draw an imaginary line and say there's an invisible force that says "No! No more evolving for your species! If you go any further you might not be able to reproduce with your cousins hundreds of miles away and become separate species!".
It's worse than Yoshi describes. It's more like comprehending units of distance and knowing what a centimetre is but then refusing to acknowledge that lots of them will add up to a kilometre.

To be fair, I also think there are those of us who don't see how threatening evolution is to Christianity. It totally ruins Genesis and turns it into a work of fiction. This in turn makes original sin, one of the main tenets of Christianity, a total fabrication. Now Jesus dies for sins that he (or his father) made up in a book. Unless you can compartmentalise all that and somehow believe in both or you do some interesting logical gymnastics, it really can end someone's faith.

But that's a strictly literal interpretation of the bible. Besides, they already do logical hopscotch, ignoring certain unpleasant concepts in the bible like slavery and killing your kids when they don't go to sabbath. Granted, none of those things are as pivotal as the creation story, we're assuming they're taking it literally.

This might be because we didn't, and instead share a common ancestor.

If chimpanzees and orangutans are both considered apes, than that common ancestor would have to be considered an ape as well (as would humans). But you are right in that we certainly didn't evolve from the apes we have around today. It's just easier to say that we evolved from "apes" than that we and chimpanzees both evolved from "basal hominins."

You're only furthering the stupidity pervo.

What?

Apes are members of a certain family of a primates. Humans are apes, in fact. Human ancestors would be considered apes, too. At least I think, I'm not a taxonomer, so the exact categorization may be different.

Colloquially, ape has a different meaning which has lead to much confusion when used in a sentence like "humans evolved from apes."

The group commonly referred to as "apes" is paraphyletic, meaning that it is not inclusive of all species derived from a common ancestor to the exclusion of any species that are not derived from that ancestor. In this case, humans and chimpanzees shared a more recent common ancestor than either of them and orangutans, so any taxonomic grouping that contained chimpanzees and orangutans but not humans would be paraphyletic.

There's a reason I used quote marks.

You put quotes around the entire phrase, instead of just around "apes".

So you are ignoring fossil records, obvious links, and basic observations?

I already said that my point wasn't to pick one side of the issue over the other but, rather, express my opinion about questioning a persons intelligence simply because they disagree with all or part of evolutionary theory.



Duh. It's the phrase that is commonly used and I accented it with quote marks to imply that it was not necessarily my opinion.