Gravity is just a theory. As I mentioned earlier, a theory is not speculation or hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of facts. To put it in another way - in science a theory is the HIGHEST level of understanding we can have for something. Even if all of the knowledge about evolution was gained, it would still remain classified as a theory. Theories do not get promoted to the next level of understanding because there is none.

Wrong. We have seen several occasions of evolution occurring.

As I mentioned earlier, again, evolutionary paths are not linear. You don't outgrow your species. A population within a species diverges.

Second. Man IS an ape. Humans are homo sapiens. Homo Sapiens are a subset of great apes along with the chimpanzee and 3 others. Like it or not, you are an ape.

Please stay on topic. If you want to discuss the big bang then start a new thread like we started one for evolution.

Evolution - biology
Big Bang - cosmology

They have nothing to do with each other at all.

Leap of faith? Check on the activity at CERN. Something from nothing does not need faith.

Pascal's Wager.

Wrong. Evolution is a theory because it explains facts that are observed, predicted, and replicated. Creation has no facts so it doesn't get the honor of being a theory. Like I mentioned, even if 100% of evolution was proven, it would still be classified as theory.



SUMMARY: In science a theory is the highest level of understanding we have for a chosen topic.

Faith is belief. And by that everyone is entitled to believe what they want.

Science on the other hand is not a belief system anymore than math is.

Therefore this topic should be able to be discussed (civilly) without involving people's beliefs. As Raellus mentioned, one can accept the reality of science and still enjoy whatever divine beliefs you might have by separating the two. I invite you to stay and not feel that this is an attack on your beliefs.

Blah... after I just wrote a response too. I guess its my fault for not reading all of the posts first.

Yes. A world of yes. Many people probably think I'm pedantic but it really, really irks me when ignorant people refer to various Great Apes as 'monkeys'. Do you see a tail anywhere? No? Then it's probably NOT A MONKEY (yes, I know not all monkeys have tails but it's a broadly useful rule of thumb).

Calling apes monkeys is insulting, both to the ape in question but also to US. Because WE ARE APES.

I have a fantastic head and shoulders photo on my harddrive of a male Bonobo. That little guy is quite clearly a thinking creature. He has a very alien outlook on life compared to me, sure, but IMO the great apes deserve far more recognition. If it was up to me I'd recognise them as (non-human) people and grant them land rights.

It’s a shame that the collision of faith and science often becomes an either/or prospect. The Jesuits are a great example of the fusion of inquiry and faith. While Genesis is a story that has outlived its shelf life, there’s no compelling reason to put God and evolution in separate bins. Unfortunately, Marx’s observation about the way the masses use faith is too often true. Human beings are anxious creatures. Faiths offer fixed answers to those who crave them, whereas the scientific narrative is by its nature under constant challenge. The real conflict seems to be between people who want a fixed, immovable universe and those who see a mobile universe, not between people of faith and people of science. Heck, the two terms themselves are hardly mutually exclusive.

At CERN they did something and had a reaction. They were not just standing around and doing nothing to create the reaction.

the·o·ry Noun/ˈTHēərē/
1. A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, esp. one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained: "Darwin's theory of evolution".
2. A set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based

I am on topic, the theory of evolution vs creation. The Big bang is a theory much like evolution is it not? So they do have allot to do with each other as far as both being theories and that is what is root of this discussion.

We see evolution on a very basic scale with simple forms and have not to my knowledge know of any advanced creature evolving. Then again I could be wrong.

But I am willing to believe that some times shit just happens. Could care less how or why it happens most of the time. Some times though its pretty interesting.


100% proven, wouldn't that be a theorem, law, or fact?

"God is, or He is not"

I am not an ape I am a man, besides I hate bananas. ;P

Hmm guess I am allot more on the same thought path as the Jesuits.

;D we all do that, :D

You don't have to like it but you are an ape. It is just part of taxonomy, not a personal judgement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape

True, there isn't a lot of hard evidence for the big bang, but it is the most logical conclusion drawn based on that which is available.
Ignoring the evidence for a moment though, the difference between creation and the big bang (or evolution for that matter) is that nobody gets all uptight when the established "facts" of the big bang/evolution are challenged or altered. Try doing that with a religion and you'll see the start of a holy war....

Allot of the problem is narrowminded attitudes on both sides of the divide. Check out Richard dawkins for an example of a Atheistic fundie.

The whole refusing to admit Humans are apes for instance. Humanity has a pretty arrogant view of itself and in general we consider ourselves superior and outside of otherlife on the planet. It's hard for us to acknowledge the idea that we are superior because we got lucky a million years ago when we evolved opposable thumbs.

"Sir Wilfrid Le Gros Clark was one of the primatologists who developed the idea that there were "trends" in primate evolution and that the living members of the order could be arranged in a series, leading through "monkeys" and "apes" to humans. Within this tradition, "ape" refers to all the members of the superfamily Hominoidea, except humans.[3] Thus "apes" are a paraphyletic group, meaning that although all the species of apes descend from a common ancestor, the group does not include all the descendants of that ancestor, because humans are excluded.[9] The diagram below shows the currently accepted evolutionary relationships of the Hominoidea,[2] with the apes marked by a bracket." (sorry the bracketed chart does not show up.)

But we are not Apes. We may have descended from a common ancestor. And some people in their opinion classified us as apes. They are the closest Animal on the Planet to us. Some lump us into the Greater Apes.

I like Sir Wilfrid's thoughts on this subject. I do not know for sure, but then again I could be wrong. Though I don't think I am.

Do the other "apes" think about this, or try to explain it too each other? Do they try to change their environment by building cities and roads? Do they establish scientific theories, or religions?

Some if not most Scientists seam to lump us in with the apes because its the closest critter left.

Why are we not monkeys, oh yeah no tail, but wait we have a vestigial tail that is at the end of our spine, but not grown out. ( The coccyx bone is the tailbone at the end of the spine)

Either way, I still hate nanners. (bananas) :D

Humans are animals, plain and simple. Anyone who excludes even one small species is doing science and their own credibility a grave disservice.

True - we all do it like they do on the Discovery Channel (or something like that)
:)

The cosmic microwave background is 'hard' evidence. It's the "proof" of the big bang. What is not well understood is the cause of the bang, not it's existence.

But that subject is cosmology, not evolution.

Here's an interesting view on how arrogant humans have become as a species. I read it in Popular Science a few years back (I'll try to get you the exact issue; I probably scanned it and it's some where on one of my hard drives).

The current OPPLAN in the case of an open landing of extraterrestrials on US soil (i.e., they aren't trying to hide, land in a public place with no attempt to hide themselves -- I think the article gave the example of a landing on the Washington Mall), the plan is that the spacecraft would immediately be boarded by armed troops in Level 4 biological gear and we would take control of it. The actual ETs would be taken to one of several possible secure facilities around the country (the CDC and Fort Dietrick are a couple of the places mentioned) and placed in complete isolation until the government decides that they prove no threat.

Here's the one-foot kicker: Even an intelligent ET species is, by US law, considered to be an animal -- a complex biological creature, but not human -- and our government is under no obligation to afford the ETs any of the rights one might give to a human.

Here's the two-foot kicker: US law would also classify them as illegal aliens, which means that we would have the right to imprison them and put them through the immigration system. On top of that, if our wonderful government felt that they posed any harm, the full force of the PATRIOT Act could be brought against them. (Assuming that we don't just fall back to "animal" definition and kill them, then possibly even serve them up for dinner in a light wine sauce.)

What really got me about that article is that the US government thought that if an extraterrestrial species advanced enough to travel the stars were to land on the Washington Mall, we could manage to do ANY of that to them.

Sounds like whomever wrote that 'plan' watched the original early 50s version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, failed to learn any of the messages the story was trying to impart, and wants to make the exact same stupid, silly mistakes the US government makes in that movie.

Which is a simple fact that, unfortunately, none of the major political parties in the U.S. comprehend, especially the far-right ones.

A group of Chimpanzees was noted to have evolved a method of cooperation almost human. War. Somewhere in Central Africa just recently observedl

This group gets together something like 200 maybe more. They invade the territory of another group of chimps and drive them out. Seizing food sources and living space.

I don't know if you were aware of it but the study also found that the chimps would patrol their territory if tensions between them and an adjacent group were high. It was surmised that they were doing it to prevent the opposition from attacking.

By "hard evidence" I was trying to say that the data is there, but the interpretation of it could be off. It's not my area of expertise though but as the data has only been known a realtively short time (a few decades) and fossils, etc have been known about for much much longer....

Anyway, the point is simple - not many scientific types go to war/declare jihad/crusade when their ideas and beliefs are challenged.

I'm a supporter of the idea of great ape personhood (as in I think the non-human great apes should be recognised as being people of a sort and afforded at least some of what we consider to be "human rights"). I know a fair bit about the great apes, too. When I was a kid I wanted to be a paleoanthropologist when I grew up and I still have a deep interest in the biological sciences.

Chimps making war on other chimps is nothing new. It has long been known that rival chimp tribes make war on one another. They'll even take up arms (thrown rocks and lumps of wood). Chimps can be vicious little bastards, in captivity or in the wild. The other species of non-human great apes tend to be much nicer people, on average. Orangs and Bonobos are quite peaceful.

In many ways I think the non-human great apes are on much higher moral ground than humans. They exist in their environments without causing any serious long-term damage. If left alone they could keep living their simple lives, generation after generation, for millenia. The way humans are going we're likely to make much of our environment toxic, possibly even uninhabitable, within a century or 2. And as we drive ourselves into extinction we'll take most other species into the abyss with us.

Oh yeah, we're sooo smart. :(

Religious fundamentalists have a problem with evolution because it contradicts the creation described in Genesis. They view the Bible as literally true and factual throughout. Any evidence that challenges any one of those assumed truths recorded in the Bible therefore threatens the entire foundation of their belief system.

I can't remember who said it, but I find this quote says it all: "It is easier to ignore an inconvenient fact than to adjust an entire belief system." (I'm paraphrasing here.)

Myself and many other more "liberal" Christians tend to view much of the Old Testament as being largely allegorical. There are inherent spiritual and moral truths in many of tales, even if they are not necessarily literally true in the sense that they happened exactly as described in the Bible (say, for example, the story of the Flood or Jonah and the Whale). This way of thinking, however, is anathema to Christian Fundamentalists. To them, it's an all or nothing proposition.