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Simplify Evolution
#1
Simplify Evolution
My theist girlfriend thinks its ridiculous that we evolved from apes. We were having a discussion about things while watching "The Bible" mini-series. She said she is open to the possibility that there is no god, but still thinks the evolution of apes to humans is a crock of shit. She said she learned about evolution in school, but didn't let me get into the discussion any further. (Typical believer. "I think I'm right, but I'm not going to let you say anything that makes logical sense, because it will make me look stupid") I'm not sure she really has an understanding of how it works or she would be able to see how humans could have evolved from apes.

So my question to you all is how would you simplify evolution so I don't have to just say "go read for yourself", because I know she won't. What would be the easiest way to explain how evolution takes place in layman's terms?

Also if you may have some answers to other related questions such as "how long it would take for humans to evolve from apes?", etc., I would love to hear those also. With enough logic I think I can show her what reality looks like.
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#2
RE: Simplify Evolution
If someone is really philosophically opposed to evolution rather than just not understanding it, I imagine that it would be very hard to change her mind. Has she taken a College level biology class? Maybe you could sit in on some lectures or seminars about it.
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#3
RE: Simplify Evolution
We didn't evolve from apes. Humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor.
(March 30, 2013 at 9:51 pm)ThatMuslimGuy2 Wrote: Never read anything immoral in the Qur'an.
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#4
RE: Simplify Evolution
Get her to read "The Greatest Show On Earth" by Richard Dawkins. If she can't understand it after that then there is simply no hope and I should just practice saying, "Yes dear" and "No dear" and the appropriate times.
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#5
RE: Simplify Evolution
(April 19, 2013 at 2:54 pm)loganlandis Wrote: My theist girlfriend thinks its ridiculous that we evolved from apes. We were having a discussion about things while watching "The Bible" mini-series. She said she is open to the possibility that there is no god, but still thinks the evolution of apes to humans is a crock of shit. She said she learned about evolution in school, but didn't let me get into the discussion any further. (Typical believer. "I think I'm right, but I'm not going to let you say anything that makes logical sense, because it will make me look stupid") I'm not sure she really has an understanding of how it works or she would be able to see how humans could have evolved from apes.

So my question to you all is how would you simplify evolution so I don't have to just say "go read for yourself", because I know she won't. What would be the easiest way to explain how evolution takes place in layman's terms?

Also if you may have some answers to other related questions such as "how long it would take for humans to evolve from apes?", etc., I would love to hear those also. With enough logic I think I can show her what reality looks like.

When you're making love just whisper subliminal messages in her ear like "random mutations plus natural selection mmmmm yehhhh"
There's no other way to do it if she won't actually enter a conversation about it with you anymore beyond the fact she learned it in school.

Also try watching anything documentary that involves richard dawkins or david attenbourough. Or the walking with series.


Are you ready for the fire? We are firemen. WE ARE FIREMEN! The heat doesn’t bother us. We live in the heat. We train in the heat. It tells us that we’re ready, we’re at home, we’re where we’re supposed to be. Flames don’t intimidate us. What do we do? We control the flame. We control them. We move the flames where we want to. And then we extinguish them.

Impersonation is treason.





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#6
RE: Simplify Evolution
Evolution is flawed. It cannot explain why there were so many lilly-assed white people traipsing around the Eastern Mediterranean 2000 years ago as depicted in "The Bible" series.
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#7
RE: Simplify Evolution
(April 19, 2013 at 2:54 pm)loganlandis Wrote: My theist girlfriend thinks its ridiculous that we evolved from apes.

We didn't. We and apes share a common ancestor. In turn monkeys and apes share a common ancestor further back.

Most of the problems with discussing evolution is that it is so simple in concept yet the "examples" are almost invariably misstated. Nothing personal. It is so simple that it is hard to grasp.

Quote:We were having a discussion about things while watching "The Bible" mini-series. She said she is open to the possibility that there is no god, but still thinks the evolution of apes to humans is a crock of shit. She said she learned about evolution in school, but didn't let me get into the discussion any further. (Typical believer. "I think I'm right, but I'm not going to let you say anything that makes logical sense, because it will make me look stupid") I'm not sure she really has an understanding of how it works or she would be able to see how humans could have evolved from apes.

So my question to you all is how would you simplify evolution so I don't have to just say "go read for yourself", because I know she won't. What would be the easiest way to explain how evolution takes place in layman's terms?

Also if you may have some answers to other related questions such as "how long it would take for humans to evolve from apes?", etc., I would love to hear those also. With enough logic I think I can show her what reality looks like.

I will tell you what evolution is very simply. It takes very little additional knowledge. Lots of people can not grasp it being this simple because the examples/results appear unrelated.

An allele is a variation in gene expression. It is the reason that children of the same sex of the same parents are not identical. That is the natural source of variation of ourselves and all species. It is these variations which drive evolution.

Evolution is the change of allele frequency within a population over time. That is all. It is that simple. When the allele frequency has limited variability you have a new species. Species do not continue to change when the range of allele expression does not result in more children. More children is the simple way of saying reproductive advantage.

When you get into the details of how this works it does get a bit more complicated although the basic concept remains exactly as simple as above. The next few paragraphs are only about how a new allele frequency becomes dominant. If you take the time to think about it the ideas almost as simple as the above.

But if you can get away with saying allele drift, aka evolution, aka speciation is faster when there are small groups in relative isolation you don't have to read any further.

Like a small group of finches isolated on the Galapagos. That is Darwin talking about finches adapting to different food supplies, filling some niches. There is no requirement that evolution will fill all niches or that evolution has to occur. There were no carnivorous finches to eat other finches, to fill the predator niche. In fact there is no requirement that the finches ever adapted to the different food supplies.

For a species, only alleles which result in having more children promote a specific set of allele frequency changes. Take for example opposable thumbs. IF more opposible means more food then it will lead to more offspring. Opposability will become more common. As all apes did not evolve opposable thumbs, only the ones on the human branch did, it would appear it has no value in itself. As our branch used tools that would suggest tools can be better used if there is an opposable thumb.

There is another thing that helps evolution, small separated groups. If there is a large population no matter what the advantage of a different gene expression like more opposable thumbs if it keeps being "averaged out" in a large population there is not going to be a change in frequency. American Indians arrived as a small group and their alleles resulted in distinct physical characteristics. They were separated from old world.

In the old world different races occur where there are physical barriers which slow interbreeding. Even though all are Indo-European northern Europe, southern Europe (separated by the east-west mountain chain across Europe) and north Africa (separated by the Med) have distinct physical characteristics. But in northern Europe from Ireland to the Urals the differences are much less. Any new allele frequency arising in the Urals can travel to Ireland (and vice versa) in only a thousand years which is not long enough for particular allele frequency to become dominant. But despite the mountains and distances the "white" Indo-Europeans, the pre-WWII Aryans, do not dilute from India to Ireland to Morocco.

Anyway speciation by reproduction in isolation is Dawkins' only claim to fame in the field. The rest is popular writing like Sagan.

One more point, the allele variation is random just like the believers claim. However the disappearance of variations which reduce reproductive success, that result in fewer children is deterministic and ruthless. The latter believers do not want to hear.
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#8
RE: Simplify Evolution
[raises hand] question:

How is she open to the idea that there is no god, but NOT open to the idea of evolution?
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#9
RE: Simplify Evolution
Evolution dumbed down: you need a new flu shot every year because the damned virus keeps evolving defenses against the last year's vaccine.

How about you show her the Finches that got Darwin the idea of evolution in the first place?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_finches
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#10
RE: Simplify Evolution
(April 19, 2013 at 3:30 pm)Joel Wrote: We didn't evolve from apes. Humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor.


Incorrect. We did evolve from apes.

The common ancester of modern humans and modern apes was itself an animal that fit all the scientific cladisitic definition of an ape. It doesn't matter that particular type of ape is extinct. It was still an ape. So we evolved quite literally from apes.

Furthermore, a human in fact still fit all the scientific cladistic definition of an ape. So we humans are still apes.

So we evolved from apes, and we still are apes.
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