Theory of Evolution Simplified

by darth frosty 49 Replies latest jw friends

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  EndofMysteries

  Dogs and species were the better example because they can interbreed but birds can't. What I meant on the common ancestor is that all races are based on thousands of years of how and where they lived and the exposure to the sun. And the person who said well you had dark skinned in north america, the comment about that being fairly recent is correct too. I don't know of any archeaological finds showing thousands of years of humans on this continent. Africa, South America, the nordic countries, are due to thousands + years. Due to that and the diet it creates genetic changes or 'evolution' making each more immune and more prone to different sicknesses and such. I am unsure if preference for taste in foods, color choices, etc, how much is based on how one is raised and their culture vs will they be drawn to the same foods and taste no matter what.

  What many label as racist things, I see as cultural observations. It has nothing to do with the color of their skin, but the culture of the people. On that is not negative, in many asian countries and those who immigrate to USA, they will tend to study harder and get higher grades because in that culture places high value on that and what they call family honor. They don't do that because of how they look it's the culture. And you may get ones who do not follow that and don't care, but a large enough percentage do and it's a noticeable difference from other cultures.
• 

  still thinking

  It's not like fish, which I won't touch...New Chapter

  But fish are genetically perfect for us to eat....and Jesus said we can eat it....
• 

  NewChapter

  EndofMysteries: Yes the theory is that sun exposure is what impacted our skin color. And different regions will have concentrations of certain genetic traits. Natural selection would also choose individuals that are more fit to the environment they live in, so our immunity and sensitivity to certain foods will be affected as a group. The guesses on when people migrated to the western hemisphere changes as we learn more, and some accept different dates, but somewhere around the 15,000 ya mark identifies a settlement in Monte Verde, South America. So by that time, people had migrated from the north all the way to the south. It is generally believed that this migration was from one population of people from, but finding Kennewick Man has opened the possibility that there were others, whose markers were either lost because they died out, or they may have simply been absorbed by those already here and their markers were lost through gentic drift.

  So we agree on those points. However when you talk of stereotypes and not sharing common ancestors, the conversation changes. It turns negative. Perhaps that was not your intention. Sterotypes are often wrong and constructed by outsiders that do not understand a culture. They often include images that a purposefully false, because the agenda is to paint the group in a negative light. When we look at people through stereoptypical glasses, we fail to consider the individual. This is prejudical. I don't know that any of us can completely over come this, the messages are strong, but we can certainly put forth a constant and vigilant effort to do so. There is also the problem of seeing common behavior as genetic rather than cultural.

  We have a lot of superficial differences, due to genetics. But as I said earlier, our cores are still very much the same. I'm still not sure exactly what you were trying to say, but the language you were using made me think it was rather negative. Perhaps I did not understand you.
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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  EoM,

  Native American populations date back 13,000 to 40,000 years. So it's not just a case of insufficient time for them to evolve. It's more a case that they all decended from a common, limited gene pool that came from Asia.

  Look into terms like "genetic isolation". Human populations didn't get darker skin simply because they were nearer the equator, standing naked in the sun. Darker skin would be favored in many African locations, yet native South Africans live in a temperate climate and also have black skin. If it was a matter of time and temperature, they should have evolved to be about the same color as the Europeans that came thousands of years later. South Africa has some of the oldest fossil sites in the world and they are separated from the equator populations by distance, geographic, linguistic, and tribal barriers.

  India is a place of interest since the ancient, native population has a very wide variety of skin color living in the same area for thousands of years. The caste system introduced genetic isolation in the population resulting in a heterogeneous population, in contrast with someplace like Japan which is very homogeneous.
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  NewChapter

  Well, Billy, it is just a theory. But it's the theory they taught me in my Anthropology classes. On one level, it makes a lot of sense. In the north, limited sunlight can cause problems in darker skin, especially because the frigid cold only allows a little bit of skin to be exposed. Where as Equatorial people would suffer greatly with light skin, pre sunscreen days. But again, it's just a theory. I'm sure there are opposing theories that we did not learn about. Still----the new world did have much less time, and other factors may have taken away the need for rapid change.
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  NewChapter

  Another thought that occurs to me, and may be a middle ground, is that the gene pool that first settled the Americas was much more limited, therefore, there may have not been as much variation in the trait as there was on the eastern hemisphere.

  Interesting subject. I should read a bit more on it.
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  sabastious

  Religious people who don't understand natural selection don't want to understand it because most scientists use it as a replacement for God and spirituality (they say natural selection is what "created us" therefore no God is needed). Religious people generally don't want have to redefine their spiritual foundations with science. A graphic wont change any of this. If evolutionists really want to get the religionists attention they should start coming up with evolution friendly God theories. The scientific community largely rejects the idea of theistic evolution so the layman Christian's (and all religions) are left to create their own logical structures, while the scientific community laughs at them by the way. Theology should never have been replaced by naturalism, it's one of our generations great sins.

  -Sab
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  NewChapter

  Evolution is silent on the matter of a god. Plenty of people that believe in a god also accept evolution. It is not an evolutionist's duty to make their ideas god friendly. Theistic Evolution is compatible with science, and if that is the view that an individual wishes to hold, they are free to do so.
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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  NC,

  There is no shortage of theories, and stuff like this is just details. And I'm just getting nit-picky on wording of cause/effect. There's no written record explaining the details of looks and migration patterns. Since Africa is considered the cradle of mankind, it might be easier to assume that we all started with dark skin. Frankly, blacks seem to be able to live anywhere in the world without dying from lack of sunshine. I, as you note, would be fried to a cancerous crisp in places where some blacks are able to run marathons in the nakid!
• 

  bohm

  "If the facts conflict with faith, its the fault of the scientists!"

  Why not take issues with god, after all, it is him who took such a great care creating us in just such a way every experiment and observation we have been able to perform either indicate or is consistent with us evolving from a common ancestor with the apes.

  but its the scientists fault for not making stuff up. yah...