The theory of evolution

We evolved that way.

 

We are devotional by nature, we are taught to believe.

 

If we evolved that way, and we did, it must have been for a purpose. Or it wouldn't have been naturally selected. Purpose? To ease our fears about the inevitability of our own death.

Doo dah

 

We are devoted to being and the bandwidth of that devotion is the instinct for self preservation to the experience of gratitude.

 

Theres a hypothesis that states that humans have the tendency to assume the "yes" position first and then ask questions later, as this was beneficial to survival in the perilous wilderness (eep! is that shadow an wildcat?!). From my observation I hold this to be correct, we definitely do tend to assume "yes" first. The existence of a god is untestable, but it does pose a survivalistic dilemma in that non-belief means eternal hellfire. Add religious conditioning and all of the warm, fuzzy feelings associated with heaven and those with the tendency for credulity and lack of critical thinking skills and you have a theist.

It's ironic how the seemingly stupidest argument for the belief in a god (pascal's wager) is also the most effective.

 

I guess I'd consider myself philosophically a sceptic, but I think we need to see a whole lot more proof before macro-evolution is anything more than one idea out of many. Natural selection seems to be self-evidently true, assuming we understand genetics as well as we think we do, but it's not that easy to tell what its limitations are. I agree that it can cause small changes in a population over long periods of time, but that doesn't equate to macro-evolution. That's a whole other world of complexity that I frankly find hard to countenance.

I'm not saying this from a religious perspective, but from an agnostic one. I am, as I said, a sceptic -- about both science and spirituality. It seems to me that believers in evolution are often guilty of the same thing they accuse theists of: grasping at something to explain their existence. Macro-evolution is in no way a proven fact, and to ceaselessly argue that it is is just foolishness. It is, as I said, just another way of escaping the unsettling mystery of our own existence. It's a much less unwieldy thing if we can at least have some idea where we came from, rather than just seeing an endless line stretching backward toward some indeterminate origin. Unfortunately though, these attempts at an explanation all seem to fall short of the mark.

 

Where'd the 3 trillion (3 million million) figure come from? That's a pretty big number.

"Because of the difficulties with both defining and tallying the total numbers of different species in the world, it is estimated that there are anywhere between 2 and 100 million different species."
Source: Society For Conservation Biology. "Just How Many Species Are There, Anyway?." ScienceDaily 26 May 2003. 27 December 2009 <http://www.sciencedaily.com* /releases/2003/05/030526103731.htm>.
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Skepticism is all well and good but the line between it and fear of conviction is a thin one. Or fear of maintaining a contested belief.

Where did elephants come from? Are you saying that an elephant didn't require an antecedent species? And that species didn't require an antecedent species? That there wasn't a casual link from life in the present to life at its origin? The only conceivable path of the evolution of complexity is from the ground up. From the crude but self-replicating organic particle to the mighty mammoths of Africa, the whales? Octopus? Seriously, do you think that these enormous organisms emerged from inorganic matter as-is? What about the well documented evolution of the horse from a little fox-like guy? Because we can't link the fox guy to blue-green algae does not mean that macro-evolution and common descent are unfounded and that the contrary belief isn't denying obviousness. Where 100% sensory observation is impossible, logic and reason fill the void.

 

I was counting the now extinct animals.

 

How do you count extinct animals. let alone know what species there were?

 

As I stated you can't.

 

Each insignificant yet salient mutation can be regarded as a different species, as there is no single point where a new species, as we define species, begins. Only when organisms numerous generations apart are contrasted can we draw meaningful distinctions worthy of a separate label; meaningful and necessary but arbitrary and largely based on a comparatively limited access to the fossil record of the history of life.

 

"A species, in the modern view, is a genetically distinctive group of natural populations (demes) that share a common gene pool and that are reproductively isolated from one another. To word it another way, a species is the largest unit of population within which effective gene flow (exchange of genetic material) occurs or can occur."
-Keeton, W. and McFadden, C., "Elements of Biological Science", 3rd ed., Norton & Co., New York, 1983, page 535.

 

That definition is adequate while pertaining to the present day but falls short in the consideration of evolution. There are present day species that reproduce with each other readily, despite the many instances of extreme variation. But a present day kangaroo could not mate with its ancestors or its posterity in the future, however each successive generation extended thousands of generations both ways can certainly mate with itself.

I agree with trillions if we include micro-organisms and the foundation from which we emerged. And why undercut our great great great great x 3495738758995275279582782 grand pappy?

 

Believe in fossil evidence and the tree of evolution, or believe the idiot rolling on the floor talking in tounges Lol.

 

You have a valid point, provided we have elephants or kangaroos or whatever engaged in time travel.
Also, the definition I presented is not graven in stone, since interspecies hybridization does occur. For example, coyotes (canis latrans) occasionally breed with wolves (canis lupus) or dogs (canis lupus familiarus). Like some people, coyotes apparently follow the advice, "any port in a storm".