I have an Evolution Question?

Question

i can see how people can believe that we grew out of bacteria but i still dint see, before the beginning of time how there was nothing, then all of the sudden matter and life. How do you get something out of Nothing?

(assuming you dint believe in God)

Answer 1

A question for you:   Why do you think there was nothing at the beginning of time?    Maybe there was always some type of matter present in the Universe.  More questions:  How did God create all of the present Universe out of nothing?   Why did he (or she) do it?    Why were all the viruses, deadly creatures, disease germs, etc. created if not for the idea that they evolved?

Answer 2

This is not an "Evolution Question" at all.   You are asking about the beginning of the universe, which has nothing at all to do with evolution.

There are three things here that you need to keep separate if you want to understand them:

1. The origins of the universe.

2. The origins of life.

3. The evolution of life.

Science doesn't understand 1 or 2 *NEARLY* as well as it understand #3, evolution.    In fact, we understand evolution better than we understand gravity (we know what causes evolution, we don't know what causes gravity).  Evolution is one of the most basic, fundamental ideas in all of modern biology ... and has been since the 1800's.

As for your question, this is about #1, the origins of the universe.   Even though this is the Biology section, I'll go ahead and address this one.   All we know is that the universe today is expanding, and therefore in the past it must have been smaller.   Based on the current rate of expansion, everything we know of now must have been compressed to a tiny point about 18 billion years ago.   What caused the universe to come into being at that time (if anything) is unknown.  But there are may hypotheses.  It is also possible that there was no "cause" ... modern physics (quantum theory) recognizes that events occur all the time that have no "cause", so this is no longer something that bothers scientists ... just laypeople who have no experience with just how weird and strange the universe really is.

As for #2 the origins of life, this is also an unsolved problem ... but scientists are getting closer all the time.  It's not that they have no ideas about how life may have started, but that there are *MANY* equally plausible ideas.   It will take a bit more research to find an idea that fits all the possible evidence.

As for #3 evolution ... as I say, this is the one we are very very sure about.   All life forms evolve.  There is tons of evidence that it has been evolving for at least 3.5 billion years.  And there is lots of evidence that all life forms are related by common ancestry.

None of this has anything whatsoever to do with whether there is or is not a God.   God, (depending on your definition) is a supernatural being that exists outside of physical laws (and in fact is able to *make* those laws).  As such, the existence or non-existence of God is outside the boundaries of science ...which can deal only with things that operate inside physical laws and leave physical evidence.

Answer 3

If you do believe in god, you still have a problem. If god is eternal is it rational to believe that he created life on only one tiny planet in a fairly ordinary galaxy in a remote part of the universe? What did he do for the infinite amount of time before and after? Read a good book? Quantum theory may answer your question, but as yet, no-one knows.

Answer 4

This question would probably be better off in the space and astronomy section, since it deals with the big bang theory.  As most of the other answers have said, the big bang theory is totally isolated from the theory of evolution.  The big bang seems to have happened roughly 14 billion years ago.  Life on earth came about, say 4 billion years ago.

In either case, something didn't come out of nothing.  There are several different models of the big bang, but in all of them, it came from something (be it a singularity, or some other exotic non-intuitive source).  In the case of abiogenesis, life came about through increasingly complex self-regulating chemical reactions.

Evolution and the big bang are two completely separate theories.  Neither of them are a case of "something coming out of nothing."  Rather, they are "something coming out of something very different."

Answer 5

<<(assuming you dint believe in God)>>

How would you do it, assuming you do believe in God?

By the way, the existence or non-existence of a god or gods has nothing to do with evolutionary theory.  Evolutionary theory boldly assumes life exists and diversified.  It says nothing whatsoever about the origins of life, nothing about the "all of the sudden matter and life", and nothing about "how you get something out of Nothing".

Answer 6

You are asking a huge question.

Scientists believe that lightning striking the atmosphere of the earth long ago caused certain simple chemicals like ammonia to form into more complicated chemicals that could lead to living cells.  These chemicals then could hook together in chains to form molecules that direct life, such as RNA and DNA.  One theory also says that fats in the primitive ocean acted on by waves, formed large globules enclosing these life directing chemicals, and that these structures eventually formed primitive cells.  Then inside the cells, conditions could evolve to allow the chemistry of life to work better and better, and so on.

I took this info from the Department of Energy.  The are numerous other theories as to the orgin of life, from aliens to God.  Scientists spend their who life working on questions like this.  

I hoped this helped a little.

Answer 7

This is a good question that has nothing to do with evolution.

To take an analogy, we know a great deal about the evolution of languages, but we can only guess about the origin of speech.  Our ignorance about the second question doesn't undermine our conclusions about the first one.

If you want my own answer, I think we have a stalemate here. Leibniz (I think) asked your question, why is there something rather than nothing?  But this question is unanswerable, for whatever is meant to be the answer would have to be part of the something that needed to be explained. I expect you would disagree with me here, but that has nothing to do with evolution and whoever is telling you that it does is either ignorant or dishonest.

Answer 8

The Big Bang has nothing to do with evolution.

Evolution is just the diversification of life.  It doesn't actually even describe the origin of life.

Answer 9

Like others have said, this is not an evolution question.  Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of the universe, and it doesn't even have anything to do with the origin of life.

But anyways, I have a question for you:  Where did god come from?

If you say god has always existed, then why can't you just say the universe has always existed?

Saying god caused it does not explain anything, because now you just have to ask what caused god.  You're only adding another step in that doesn't actually help understand anything.

If you can come up with a god explanation that actually explains something new, then I will give it credit.  But you do not have that.

By the way, if you will look up a phenomenon called 'quantum fluctuation' you will find that we have real, observed examples of particles popping spontaneously into existence out of 'nothing.'  So you might still wonder HOW we 'get something out of nothing' but you DON'T need to wonder if it can happen, because we know that it can.

Answer 10

You should read the evolution of species by Darwin! It is very enlightening and may help answer your question