A question for evolutions?

Question

I understand you probably have literature to answer this question all over the place. Just want to hear your personal answers. Evolutions claim we evolved from apes or something similar. Why then don't we observe these in between creatures in our world today. We have apes and humans, both are distinctly different and have been the same since human observation began. I realize according to evolutionist theories the process take millions and millions of years, but why then don't these in between creatures exist? Also another question concerning the same topic. Scientists also believe everything to be degenerating. How could a ape develop into a much more intelligent and emotional being as a human. All we observe on earth today is more and more diseases. I higher percentage of humans are born with autism, there are more kinds of STD's, etc. etc. Please explain?

Answer 1

The average lifespan of a species is around 1 million years, so you would not expect to see all the intermediates today.  Also, the last few million years have been some of the most chaotic in all of earth history, with frequent fluctuations between ice ages and warm periods.  This causes ecosystems to change rapidly, placing extra stress on organisms.  This not only leads to faster evolution, but also results in a greater rate of extinction.

The fact that there are no other humanoids at the moment is unusual, the last few thousand years is the only time that this has happened throughout human evolution.  The last other humanoid to go extinct were the Neaderthals.  It should be noted that they were on a seperate branch to modern humans, so were our cousins, rather than our forefathers.  It likely that a combination of the changing climate (the end of the last ice age) and competition with Homo sapiens led to the extinction of the Neanderthals.

As for your statement about Autism and other diseases, some scientists believe that the side-effect of modern medicine is that humans are no longer evolving as a species.  In a natural environment, anyone with severe autism would either not survive to reproductive age, or not find a mate.  This would cause the Autistic gene to die with that individual, so the occurance of such a disease would be much less.  We would also rely on natural resistances to beat diseases such as cancer and AIDS, rather than medicines and radiotherapy.  Having a natural resistence would give our offspring a resistance, so the occurance of such diseases would decrease over time.

Answer 2

Sorry this got long ... but please notice that your "question" was actually several questions ... GOOD QUESTIONS that each deserves a good explanation.  I spent some time on this not because I expect you to accept this answer, but because I'm assuming you are sincere in really wanting to at least hear an answer.

>"Why then don't we observe these in between creatures in our world today."

Because this would violate evolution!   In fact, it would violate the very definition of "species."

In order for evolution (change) of a species to occur, there must be *genetic isolation*.   This is the very definition of what "species" means ... a population of organisms that can interbreed, and therefore share genes in one big gene pool ... but do not interbreed with other species ... and therefore there is no way to share genes with other gene pools.

Once you understand the meaning of "species", then for *ANY* species, only one of three things can happen:  evolution, speciation, or extinction.  These can (and do) happen over and over ... a species evolves and branches, evolves and branches, and many of those branches can (and do) go extinct.  But there can be no "in-between" species.

Let's look at each of these three:

a) Evolution (change):  The species slowly changes over time due to new combinations of genes entering the gene pool (through mutation, or through sexual combinations), that spread through the population by the effects of natural selection (nature selecting those combinations that produce some advantage).  In other words, the species changes (evolves) *AS A WHOLE* ... as long as there are no permanent barriers between one population and its neighbors, a gene combination that occurs in one part of the world (that has some advantage), will eventually spread to the entire species.  In the case of a slow-reproducing species like humans, this can take 10,000 years or so ... but this is nothing compared to the millions of years that a species evolves, and the species *AS A WHOLE* evolves as a single species.  There are no "in-between" individuals ... individuals of our species that have "not evolved" and have the same traits as our ancestors of 1 million years ago, or even 100,000 years ago.  That would make no sense genetically!

b) Speciation ("branching"):  The species gets isolated into two or more subpopulations that are not exchanging genes (e.g. a large valley in Africa dries up, leaving the species separated into different populations on the mountain sides).  If they cannot exchange genes, then (a) causes them to accumulate different genetic combinations ... until the populations lose the ability to produce fertile offspring with each other even if individuals were to come in contact again.  Until they are unable to produce offspring *AT ALL* (the way that humans and chimps ... or chimps and gorillas ... cannot produce any offspring at all, even if they tried).  So again, there can be no "in-between" individuals born by cross-breeding.

c) Extinction:  The dying out of a species.  Again, there can be no "in-between" individuals between any modern species, and an extinct ancestor or cousin species.

So there *CANNOT* be "in-between" creatures living today!   Either all members of the species appear the same (within normal variation) because they the species evolves *AS A WHOLE*, OR they are separate species that *CANNOT* produce viable "in-between" offspring.

So species either change, branch, or go extinct.   There is no fourth option, "in-between" individuals ... because genetics just doesn't work that way.

>"Scientists also believe everything to be degenerating. "

??? No they don't.   Where did you read that?

There are many Creationist sites that try to draw a link with the Second Law of Thermodynamics and evolution.  But this is completely bogus.  The Second Law is about thermal behavior of molecules in a *closed environment* (like a flask that is isolated from any outside energy source).   Its application to the complexity of life forms is a *COMPLETE* stretch ... and is answered simply ... life on earth is not a "closed environment" ... it has an *ENORMOUS* outside energy source (which you can see in the sky every day)!  That energy source has a limited life-span ... it will run out of fuel eventually ... but it is only midway through its lifespan ... a star like the sun has a lifespan of about 9 billion years, and it and the earth are only 4.5 billion years old.

I don't know why Creationist sites continue to push this "everything is degenerating" argument.   It really does not apply here ... and it just reveals that these sites are written by people who don't understand science *AT ALL* (or are blatantly dishonest)!

>"All we observe on earth today is more and more diseases."

That is just not true for the earth (other species) in general.  

It is true for *humans* only in a very limited sense.   The "increases in diseases" you are referring to are all relative to extremely *small* slivers of time compared to the timescales on which evolution acts.   They are attributable to either

(a) more humans living in dense populations in the last few hundred years;

(b) more humans living longer due to better technology, food resources, and medicine; or

(c) better and better ability for the medical community to *IDENTIFY* diseases.

But this has no bearing on evolution.  (Except as a small argument in *favor* of evolution ... the fact that more people are able to survive genetic diseases like diabetes or hemophilia means that more of them are able to reproduce ... that is evolution in action.)

Let's take autism, for example, this wasn't even known before 1938!  And the increase in diagnosis of autism in the last 20 years may be largely due to changes in how doctors diagnose things.   But it has absolutely *NO* bearing on any trend that would contradict *MILLIONS OF YEARS* of evolution!  80 years is not an evolutionary trend!  Even 8,000 years is barely a blip in geological times.

And it is even less relevant as supporting the "everything is degenerating" argument.  The universe appears to be over 14 billion years old!   A trend in the last 50 years is not evidence that "everything is degenerating."

So no, there is nothing in the recent trends in the detection of diseases that says anything against evolution.  Nothing whatsoever.

Answer 3

1. We are our own demise. Saving people too much will result in a failure of species survival unless adaptations are going to be made.

2. We blow things out of proportion. ex: a person born 200 years ago would be horrified, angry, and of pissed off to know that the biggest current event topics in our time are about some poor b*****d or another having tuberculosis.

3. Judging by your question you already understand this, but we are NOT descended from apes. we (including the apes and chimps, etc...) are all descended from a common ancestral group (if you back far enough).

4. Evolution does not take “a long time”. It is an almost an instantaneously occurring process, if not so. Everytime reproduction of something ceases permanently (i.e. it dies) it stops using space or resources very much anymore. Everytime a plant in the wild dies from man made/human produced toxins and another lives that plant species is evolving to become more resistant to such byproducts. The evolution of the memes if you will would also result in the plant species dying-out in locations that then/now are less hospitable.

Answer 4

First of all we do study other animals in relation to evolution as it was not the ape that started this theory, but was actually birds on a remote island. Just that religion has brought controversy to evolution between apes and humans because man is suppose to be in the image of god (not apes).

I read somewhere that more kids are born with autism too. I think that it has to do with immunizations that are causing this. They use mercury to preserve the immunizations (I believe? I know that the mercury is probably the problem though). The rise of STD's is because partly because of its propaganda and also where it is most serious people don't understand and are spreading it exponentially. Diseases are always mutating and so there are more types of certain diseases developing all of the time.

In regards to your other questions I am not very sure about, but I hope the other things helped?!