Growing up evangelical in the 1960’s and 70’s, this was one of my favorite songs as a kid. Oh, those stupid scientists and evolutionists! Humans aren’t related to monkeys! Evolution is soooo silly and ridiculous. Good old-fashioned common sense tells you evolution is blatantly false. You don’t need to read one single science book to know that.
“It’s silly to believe that human beings are descended from an ape-like creature!”
This is what I believed growing up as an evangelical. However, if one takes the time to look at the evidence, the evidence is overwhelming that Darwinian evolution is true. Here is an interesting point to consider: Dog breeding is excellent proof of how evolution works.
Experts agree that dogs are descended from wolves. How did a big wolf turn into a tiny Chihuahua?? Answer: human selection! Humans took wolves which met their preferences (good natured, loyal, obedient) and bred those wolves to have more wolves like them. Over time, humans bred the descendants of these wolves based on other features as well such as size, color, coat length, etc. and over approximately 15,000 years, where there were once only wolves, we now have Great Danes, Labradors, and Chihuahuas. This is what happens with HUMAN selection.
Humans evolved over a much longer period of time using NATURAL selection: Nature picked the traits that best suited our ancient ancestors for survival! And over millions of years, a single celled organism eventually became…a human being.
“As you can probably imagine, this process from single celled organisms to multicelled organisms took an enormously long time. The first signs of life around 4 billion years ago!! The first multicellular organisms only evolved about 1 billion years ago, and the first humans appeared about 15 million years ago.”
Source: here
Yes, little Johnnie and Susie: You are kin to the monkey!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
End of post.
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 
Yeah, but dare one go back further to chemistry, and one discovers that there is no way the chemistry could possibly have found the right combination, only one out of 1X10^79 Billionth. Just can’t happen. Asking a biologist how life began is pure foolishness. If life were to evolve, then it started with chemistry, not biology.
LikeLike
Just because we don’t (yet) have the exact answer to how life began doesn’t mean we must default to the knee jerk reaction: “A god did it!”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Really? So you think that modern scientists are still not understanding nature well enough to have discovered that magical power out there that could overtime the mathematical impossibility for one combination out of 1X10^79 billionth power? You too appear to be mathematically challenged. They ALL know that molecules do not gravitate toward that one combination. The known universe can hold only 1X10^129 electrons if it where packed to only that one particle. If you don’t see the difference in magnitude, then it’s understandable that you think the one combination coming about by mere chance is still a possibility.
So, Gary, with you as the antagonist, what is your belief that there is such a power in nature? Is it that god you think left us all to our own devices? Where’s your proof?
LikeLike
Yes, I’m sure you know more than all the scientists, Jr..
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s nothing but a poisoning of the well, Gary. You need to study logical fallacies, because you’re throwing in a poison pill because you have nothing else to defend your position. You know as well as I do that they have no mechanism in nature that can perform the magic of formulating a molecular combination that works, much less nature’s ability to form the molecules themselves…all of them…from which to try and interconnect them in the one and only necessary pattern that works as a biological, functioning cell.
Bring on all the ad hominem and fallacies, Gary, because all that does is betray how meaninglessly weak your position really is in the face of the math and the realities. You have FAR more faith than I. Nobody has proven that God’s existence is impossible, but the math shows to us that nature is utterly incapable of bringing about life from mere randomness, chance and time.
LikeLike
Many times in history, human beings have claimed “there is no explanation for X other than God did it”, but time and time again, this assumption has been proven wrong.
Here is what scientists say on this issue:
We know how life, once it began, was able to proliferate and diversify until it filled (and in many cases created) every niche on the planet. Yet one of the most obvious big questions—how did life arise from inorganic matter?—remains a great unknown.
Our progress on this question has been impeded by a formidable cognitive barrier. Because we perceive a deep gap when we think about the difference between inorganic matter and life, we feel that nature must have made a big leap to cross that gap. This point of view has led to searches for ways large and complex molecules could have formed early in Earth’s history, a daunting task. The essential problem is that in modern living systems, chemical reactions in cells are mediated by protein catalysts called enzymes. The information encoded in the nucleic acids DNA and RNA is required to make the proteins; yet the proteins are required to make the nucleic acids. Furthermore, both proteins and nucleic acids are large molecules consisting of strings of small component molecules whose synthesis is supervised by proteins and nucleic acids. We have two chickens, two eggs, and no answer to the old problem of which came first.
In this article we present a view gaining attention in the origin-of-life community that takes the question out of the hatchery and places it squarely in the realm of accessible, plausible chemistry. As we see it, the early steps on the way to life are an inevitable, incremental result of the operation of the laws of chemistry and physics operating under the conditions that existed on the early Earth, a result that can be understood in terms of known (or at least knowable) laws of nature. As such, the early stages in the emergence of life are no more surprising, no more accidental, than water flowing downhill.
Continue reading: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-origin-of-life
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have no idea what you’re talking about with this 1.0e79 number. Even if that is the raw probability of life starting naturally (I don’t believe this to be the case), evolution and abiogenesis are not the same thing, and evolution only superficially depends on abiogenesiss.
Regardless of how life started, evolution happened and continues to happen.
LikeLike
That is a number based upon the estimated number of possible combinations for molecular arrangements to form the various molecules for lipids, proteins and all the other building blocks of a cell. Now, if you have a different number, then what is it?
LikeLike
So, if I understand what you’re saying: Life cannot have started naturally because there are lots of possible combinations. I guess that’s why nobody wins lotteries either.
LikeLike
Are you serious? Are you really that mathematically challenged?
LikeLike
Oh, and appeals to authority is also a logical fallacy. See? You really need to educate yourself on all those fallacies in order to keep from looking so ignorant.
LikeLike
You need to brush up on your logical fallacies. Here is the proper interpretation of Appeal to Authority Fallacy:
Definition
This is when we support a conclusion by appealing to a person who is not an authority on the subject. Or, it is when we appeal to an authority with whom other authorities disagree.
Examples
1) Peace is the best strategy because Einstein said so.
Note: this is fallacious because Einstein was an expert in physics, not political science.
2) You should take those vitamins because Brad Pitt said they are the best.
3) God does not exist because Stephen Hawking said so.
4) God exists because the Pope and Francis Collins said so.
5) Psychiatry is rubbish because Dr. Smith said so.
Gary: I have never appealed to one expert as the final authority on any issue. I only appeal to consensus expert opinion, so your accusation that I am using a logical fallacy is false.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Agree that it’s not a logical fallacy. I’ve written about this myself.
“When a healthy majority of scientists, working in a related field, tell us that a particular theory is the best explanation they have, we should accept their authority on this matter, because we non-experts don’t have anything better. If you disagree, what other method do you propose that is even more reliable than the consensus of scientists?“
LikeLike
Well said, Herald.
LikeLike
Yeah, Herald, you can take it from that guy is not an authority, that appeals to authority are not appeals to authority. Good one. Winning at all costs, even at the expense of honesty, is fodder for the masses who believe what they want…no matter what the truth is.
LikeLike