Flores:
I don't blame you for thinking as you do. At this stage, you're working from a position of almost complete ignorance regarding evolution. You have come up with a number of very basic, and quite sensible questions about evolution. I am sorry to see people like spuriousmonkey deflecting them rather than answering them. I will attempt to answer some of them below. For the moment, I don't want to get into the issue of whether God exists, because that is a discussion which can be had (and has been had) in other threads. I'd like to try to bring you up to speed a little on the basics of evolution.
This post may be a little disordered, because I will respond to your comments and questions in the order they appear in the thread. However, the first quote I will extract is out of order, because it is fundamental to beginning to understand evolution.
Please do explain how such random selection may have beat the tremendous odds of detrimental mutation results in a very small population.
This is the most common mistake that Creationists make about evolution. They assume that evolution is random. In fact, there are two parts to evolution:
1. The production of variation (through mutation etc.), which is random.
2. Natural selection, which is totally non-random.
Creationist always concentrate on (1) and fail to even understand (2).
The principle of natural selection states that in a population of organisms competing from common resources and breeding rights, those which are better adapted to their environments will be, on average, more likely to survive and ber offspring. This is non-random, because it is determined by the environment. Which animal is better adapted is not a roll of the dice.
If you're looking for something which "guides" evolution, you need not look for God. You need look no further than the environment.
And how does natural selection work exactly? Does nature favors a certain answers?
Yes, obviously. Take a very simple example of two mammals living in a cold climate. Suppose one is much hairier than the other, due to having a gene for hairiness. Which is more likely to survive? Obviously, the hairier one, since it has more chance of keeping warm. Which is more likely to reproduce? Again, obviously the hairy one, because it is more likely to be alive (apart from any other reasons). So, in this case nature (read, the environment) favours hairy animals, and natural selection will lead, on average, to hairier mammals in this environment.
Now take the same two animals and put them in the Sahara desert. Here, natural selection would favour the less hairy animal, for obvious reasons.
Now, ask yourself: what kinds of mammals do we tend to find in cold climates, and what kinds are found in hot climates. Answer: animals in cold climates tend to be hairier, on everage. Just as the theory of evolution predicts.
Can you see how evolution <b>explains</b> what we see, in a way that the primitive explanation "Because God made them that way" doesn't?
Do you think the cave man studied his partener's genes so extensively before he decided to hump her?
No. But she was alive when he humped her. Why? Because she was well-enough adapted to her environment. Women who were not so well adapted died off long before the cave man could hump them. See?
I disagree, sickle cell anemia is bad wherever you live...I'd rather fight malaria and take my chances as a healthy person than have sickle cell anemia.
You are correct about sickle cell anemia. If a person has sickle cell anemia, it is always bad, wherever you live. But to have sickle cell anemia, you need two copies of the sickle cell gene (one from each of your parents). If you have only one copy of the gene, then you gain resistance to malaria without being anemic. Clearly, having one copy of the sickle cell gene is great if you live in a region where malaria is prevalent. It is of no use at all if you live in an area without malaria.
Evolutionary theory predicts that, in areas where malaria is common, the sickle cell gene will be found more often in people than in areas where malaria is rare. When we examine people from different areas, this is exactly what we find, so this is evidence for natural selection.
Let's look at a simpler problem. Let's discuss how plants may have evolved?. I think we can agree that seeds are produced from trees, yet it's also true that out of a single seed, we can grow a tree. So which one came first, the egg or the chicken? The seed or the tree? The sperm/ova or the human?
This is easily answered. Let's take the classic chicken-and-egg problem. Which came first? Well, to have a chicken, you need a chicken egg, so clearly the chicken egg came before the first chicken. So, where did that egg come from? The answer is that it was laid by a chicken-like animal, almost but not quite identical to a chicken. In the process of fertilisation of the egg, a new genome came about, whether by mutation or crossing over of genes, meaning that the animal in the egg was no longer a chicken-like animal, but actually a chicken.
The seed-tree question has exactly the same kind of answer.
You see, I also believe that we are all variation of the same gene...I call it the pre-designed perfect human gene....And does this SAME gene apply to turtles and wild flowers?
There is no "perfect human gene". If that was true, every human would have 20/20 vision. We would be resistant to all diseases. We would live forever. etc. etc.
Turtles and flowers share some of our genes, but some of their genes are obviously very different to human genes. If they weren't, turtles and flowers would be humans instead of what they are. Simple, right?
I would believe that a tremendous amount of plant life existed prior to the existance of any animal life, afterall, animal life is supported by plant life, so please explain how plants were developed from the unicellular organism,
I think spurious has explained this. Unicellular organisms evolved co-operation among themselves, slowly becoming interdependent to the extent that they formed multi-cellular organisms. Those organisms gradually increased in complexity to form plants.
how they spread so much, and then what made the unicellular that has been becoming a plant for a long time decide to change it's mind and become an animal.
That did not happen. Plants and animals evolved in parallel. Animals did not evolve from plants.
Then how come we started with a very small population and ended up growing againest the odds that you have just stated that most mutations are neutral or negative....very rarely are they beneficial, and I'm sure such rare occasion will not outweight the negative impacts of mutations.
By far the majority of mutations are neutral - neither good nor bad. Populations grow when the birth rate outpaces the death rate, obviously. That has a lot to do with how effectively an animal (or plant, or whatever) manages to exploit its environment.
Against such odds, one would expect humanity to perish quickly if the gene was always mutated and not perfect... There was simply not enough people around to dilute the problem like we see now a day.
In fact, every person's genes are unique to them. Although you share 99.4% of your genes with a chimpanzee, and about half of your remaining genes with your mother, the rest of your genes are uniquely yours. Whether you pass on any of your unique genes or not depends on whether you have children. The fact you carry unique genes does not diminish your chances of reproducing, unless those genes have some kind of particularly debilitating effect on you (such as making you sterile, for example).
It's also a fact that relatives marriage increases your risk of problems? How come it doesn't improve our gene now a day to marry our sisters and brothers...
Every gene we have comes in two copies, as I mentioned with respect to sickle cell genes. You get one copy from your mother and one from your father. Many genetic defects which have bad effects require two copies of the gene to be present. Suppose you carry one copy of a bad gene, which you got from your father. It has no effect on you or your father, since you only have one copy each. Now, suppose you breed with your father. Your offspring will have a greatly increased chance of getting two copies of the defective gene. Therefore, it is usually safer to breed outside your own family.
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I hope you will bother reading this post for a change, Flores, since it took me some time and effort to write it for your benefit. I would be pleased if you dignified it with a response, and I will be particularly disappointed in you if you turn a blind eye to it. I have not commented on your religious views at all here. Instead, I have tried to educate you about a science you know little about, regardless of how much learning you may have in other areas of science.
I do not blame you for your lack of knowledge, but I will have a very low opinion of you if you refuse to even look at something which challenges your preconceptions.
