So, I don't necessarily understand some things about evolution. Mostly, it seems as though “hardcore” evolutionists turn a blind eye to a lot of stuff that seem to be “go to jail” cards. Things that kind of deliver the proverbial baseball bat to the proverbial skater's knee. Not to say that Christians, or religious people in general for that matter don't also do this, but I'm not talking about them. And many of them actively struggle with the things they don't get.
My first problem is that we suck in small groups. In small groups, we'd be doomed. Which means that in order for men to have any hope of getting out of the wild, a whole damn bunch of us would have had to appear at once, which is unlikely because:
Male primates are known to eat their young. Eat them for any variety of reason. Because they're hungry and the kid's weak, because they suspect it's not theirs, because it looks foreign. How then do we anticipate that a larval human (or half human) sliding out of a woman monkey wouldn't get eaten? It seems unlikely that enough male primates would let a freak of nature like this freakish tale less-thing walk around for very long.
I had a boss defend evolution saying that the reason man had risen to the top was because of our intellect and technology. The problem with this is that those two things take lots of time to cultivate. Mostly, humankind is kind of characterized by a whole bunch of pigs eating in a slop tank, and once a generation, if we're lucky, one or two will happen to look up, and then receive a revelation of some kind. Unfortunately for us human folk, intellect and revelation are semi-sparse for us. So, in order for man to have conquered animals using his intellect, that means he would have had to have come furnished with an intellect, and enough other man animals to be able to use that intellect properly. Sure, one man could make a sling and a spear, but he uses it on a monkey, all he's done is piss that monkey off, which pisses other monkeys off, now he's monkey dinner.
Then there's the physical limitations. Humans suck donkey nuts in comparison to almost every other animal. Are claws are tiny and fragile, our fangs break easily, we can't run that fast, or swim, we can't see that well, or hear stuff, we're not that strong (at least practically), and our piss is weak. No animal would be afraid of our wee wee.
I had a friend say that the only reason I could claim we were so weak was because I'd never seen a person in the wild, where they could shine. I don't care. You can take our best fighter and place it against the most humdrum of baboons or laziest of gazelles, and we still lose in fisticuffs. Muhammad Ali vs. a tiger, Bruce Lee vs. a chimp. No matter what, we just lose. We suck. Our hardware is not up to par with the most average of predators.
Along the lines of hardware is the fact that we lost things that would have been wicked handy. Apart from the sense of smell, fangs, and claws, we also have tales, feet thumbs, and the longer forearms that allow us to lope if we want to. It makes no sense that our ancestors at any point would have quit using things like that. At no point do they cease becoming useful. You would make shoes to accommodate your feet, sheathes to keep your tail warm. Or better yet, fur has served every other mammal just fine for thousands of years, why would prehistoric man buck tradition like that? Why would we ever have lost our fur? It's a complete non sequitur.
And it's not like I feel like I have a complete image of what God is. I don't. I used to feel like I did, but the more I learn, the less I know, but the more I feel convinced that it has to be God (or whatever that ultimate reality is). Evolution just seems like such hope in folly.
10 comments:
If you're that worried about evolution not making any sense, I'm sure there are books out there that explain it. That whole post sounds ignorant. You seem to believe, or want to sound like you believe, that *any* evolution of any species is conscious. Also, that it happens in only a few generations: 50 years, monkeys to humans. Fantastic. You can see evolution at work in show dogs. Shitty evolution at that, because people are breeding the dogs not for survival skills, but for looks. Example: Pomeranian dogs. A couple hundred years ago they used to be 20-30 lb. dogs, but now they are 5-10 lbs. They have been forcefully bred down. Thus, they have evolved to be smaller and not by their own choice. The goal of the animal is to pass on it's genes, but we interfered and only let the small ones pass on genes, thereby ensuring smaller Pomeranian dogs. This took almost 200 years with effort put forth by humans. Maybe you can see evolution is possible, yes?
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Ajay, you miss the point. What has happened to dogs is a creation of man, not chance, mutation, or natural selection. And despite the fact that the canine genome has been twisted up like that 20 year old unsolved Rubiks cube, all dogs still maintain a 99.85% genetic match on average.
We as humans are not physically up to par with the rest of nature. It is a paradox of sorts that has remained unanswered. When reading a book on evolution, try not to pay attention to the pretty albeit bias illustrations and look at the pictures of the fossils themselves.
Genetics offers a great many a paradoxes. Such as why do humans have 46 chromosomes and potatoes have 48? And we also have a 50% genetic sequence match to a banana!!!
oh my gooodness, I stopped reading after the human baby coming out of a monkey comment. This is why people don't understand evolution. it's a process, not an event. I'm sorry I didn't give the rest of your post the time of day, but it was just. so. wrong.
We need more independent thinkers like you..keep pursuing what is true...and get your questions answered...do not just believe something because it is popular:)
I really like when people are expressing their opinion and thought. So I like the way you are writing
Here's why evolution and natural selection don't make sense!!
http://jigarbpatel.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-evolution-and-natural-selection.html
Why Evolution Doesn't Make Sense
Sorry the link did not go through..
"Which means that in order for men to have any hope of getting out of the wild, a whole damn bunch of us would have had to appear at once"
That's not how evolution works. New species don't just appear. What appears is genetic mutation. If you have a genetic mutation that makes you more likely to procreate, that mutation will eventually, after many, many generations, reach the whole population of a species, or of a subset of a species that will eventually become its own species. Thus, the species slowly changes as a group.
There's no half-human suddenly sliding out of a monkey. That never, ever, ever happened, and it's not something that is in any way predicted by evolution.
About the second argument you're making (humans are weak compared to other animals, and thus wouldn't have survived): you're looking at modern humans, and assuming that we looked like this before we started to use tools. That's backwards. In fact, our ancestory (who were not modern humans) started to use tools, domesticate animals, and do all of these things. This gave them an evolutionary advantage over similar apes that did not do such things.
Over time, this advantage meant that human bodies become weaker (we had weapons, and strong, agile bodies were less of an advantage), but our mental capacity became larger (having the ability to make better weapons was an evolutionary advantage).
Evolution is a very, very slow thing. Humans 6000 years ago were almost the same as we are. Very little changes in that kind of timespan. Each ape's children looked like their parents. Only very, very, very slowly, over hundreds and thousands of generations, did small changes slowly manifest themselves, and apes turn gradually into modern humans.
It's funny that I wrote this over four years ago, comprised of thoughts I definitely no longer think, on a blog left VERY abandoned, and yet it's the only one that continues to get semi-regular comments. Where do you guys come from?
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