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Question: Does natural selection continue today!?
I know that evolution (the idea that organisms adapt constantly) can be seen today in the discoveries of new organisms, but if humans were part of evolution, why aren't we constantly adapting ourselves while other living things are changed and rediscovered as new organisms!? Is there something special about Homo sapiens that exempts them from the natural forces of nature!? Or are we changing as well, but very subtly!? Or is it because we have already evolved into the perfect organism and we no longer need evolution!? Please give sincere answers for my sincere question, and all verbal attacks on either creationism or evolution will not be tolerated!. I myself am a creationist, so my question might be biased to some degree, but I'm just trying to understand more about the evolutionist point of view so that I won't be narrow-minded like fundamentalists when I discuss creationist theories with evolutionists!. Just looking for some interesting discussions, don't get me wrong!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Of course it does!.
The problem is, they observe natural selection (survival of the fittest) and assume it points to molecules-to-man evolution!. But, as the Dutch botanist, Hugo de Vries, said, “Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest!.” That statement is just as true today!.
I believe Dr!. Terry Mortenson is correct: “Natural selection is the God-designed method of preserving representatives of the original created kinds!.”
Natural selection is a logical process that anyone can observe (and it was actually a creationist named Edward Blyth who first wrote about it in 1835–37, before Darwin)!. We can look at the great variation in an animal kind and see the results of natural selection!. For instance, wolves, coyotes, and dingoes have developed over time as a result of natural selection operating on the information in the genes of the dog kind!.
But there are limits!. For instance, you can’t breed a dog to the size of an elephant, much less turn it into an elephant!. As Dr!. Ray Bohlin said, “For essentially every trait, although it usually harbors some variability, there has always been a limit!. Whether the organisms or selected traits are roses, dogs, pigeons, horses, cattle, protein content in corn, or the sugar content in beets, selection certainly has an effect!. But all selected qualities eventually fizzle out!. Chickens don't produce cylindrical eggs!. We can't produce a plum the size of a pea or a grapefruit!. There are limits to how far we can go!.”
Natural and artificial selection can only operate on the information already contained in the genes; it doesn’t produce new information (they look to mutations for that)!. The different dogs we see today have resulted from a rearrangement or loss of information from the original dog kind!. That is why you can breed wolves to get to chihuahuas, but you can’t breed chihuahuas to get to wolves!. The new breeds of dogs have much less genetic information and variability!.
And the thing is, what are they!? Dogs!. What were they!? Dogs!. What will they be!? Dogs!. The same could be said for Darwin’s finches, peppered moths, and so forth!. There is a big difference between subspeciation (variation within a kind) and transspeciation (change from one kind to another)!. And yes, there are a lot of semantics that go on with what is considered a new “species” or what is a “kind!.” I’ll leave that to the experts to wrangle about!.
The thing is, natural selection explains how the dogs can adapt and survive in different environments, not where the dogs came from in the first place!.
They have great variability and adaptability, but they are still dogs and bacteria, etc!. As Dr!. Carl Wieland said, “Bacteria actually provide evidence against evolution!. Bacterial populations multiply at incredibly high rates!. In only a matter of a few years, bacteria can go through a massive number of generations, equivalent to millions of years in human terms!. Therefore, since we see mutation and natural selection in bacterial populations happening all the time, we should see tremendous amounts of real evolution happening!. However, the bacteria we have with us today are essentially the same as those described by Robert Koch a century ago!. In fact, there are bacteria found fossilized in rock layers, claimed by evolutionists to be millions of years old, which as far as one can tell are the same as bacteria living today!.”
As Dr!. David Berlinski said about this (when being interviewed for Icons of Evolution), “When we look at dogs, no matter how far back we go, it’s dog!. When we look at bacteria, no matter what we do, they stay bugs!. They don’t change in their fundamental nature!. There seems to be some sort of an inherent species limitation and we have no good explanation for this in terms of Darwinian theory!. We should have far more flexibility, far more plasticity under laboratory conditions than we actually do if Darwinian theory or anything like that were correct!.”
There certainly seems to be a permanence of kinds!. As zoologist Dr!. Walter Veith has said of the fruit fly that’s been bred and mutated and bombarded with more evolutionary processes than anything else, and has produced all these different varieties and characteristics and deformities: “But, it’s always fruit flies!. How many tunes can I play on a piano!? Unlimited tunes, but it’s always piano music!. How many tunes can I play on the violin!? Unlimited number of tunes, but it’s always violin music!.”Www@QuestionHome@Com
Falling in love is a natural instinct for selecting a mate, this is natural selection!. Your animal instincts decide who is attractive and who is not, and this selection process is not unique to humans!.
Evolution is much slower, it has taken over 50,000 years for mankind to split into the different races we see today!. So if it takes fifty thousand years to make a slight difference in hair or skin tones, it's unlikely that we'll see any significant changes in the human race before our genetics are completely augmented by technology in the coming centuries!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
*sigh*
No, due to our use of technology and medicine, we are not really effected by natural selection!. People with poor vision can wear glasses, people with severe disabilities can survive to reproduce through a plethora of medical technologies!.
The only way that humans will evolve as a species will be via technological advancements!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Humanity is VERY young compared to most other speicies on our planet!. We have only just reached this stage and shouldn't expect any major advancementsin the near future!. also, humanity has interfered with N!.S because practically everyone is breeding so the 'selection' doesn't really occur anymore in our species!.
On the other hand, there have been several recent minor variations among human cultures that infrequently interbreed!. For example, people have different skin colours and body sizes!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
The voices in my head guide me!. At times they tease me and push me over the edge!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
As always we listen to God, and follow what he says, now if you chose not to then you must be trying to out do him!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Evolution usually takes millions of years!. A long, long, LONG time!. The exceptions are when there is exceptional pressure!. Some alien arrives an kills everyone taller than four feet!. A superflu bug annihilates everyone on the planet not completely immune to the flu (and yes, there are some folks who are)!. So you are not likely to see any dramatic changes recorded in human history because it is simply so short!.
All that natural selection requires, however, is for some trait to have a preferentially greater or lesser survival rate!. And we see studies done on this all the time!. Some families are prone to cancer!. Left-handed people are more prone to fatal accidents in a world designed by right-handed ones!. Intelligent people tend to marry and have children with equally intellegent people!. If these trends continue for long enough, it is hard to imagine how they can NOT have an effect!. It's just like the superflu example, but slower-acting and taking longer for full effect!.
Having said that, there are things which don't affect us as much as they used to, which is why some people erroneously suggest that humans are exempted from evolution!. When we can vaccinate for disease, innate resistance makes less of a difference!. When we can distribute sweaters and blankets, less people need some kind of cold resistance!.
But as long as someone dies with less kids than someone else and the reason for it has a genetic basis, it's hard to imagine that not eventually having some effect on the pool of genes available to humanity!. No matter where you believe humans came from in the first place!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
"Natural selection" is differentiated death!. It arises because there is an over-production of young in any generation (more are produced than can survive to reproduce themselves)!. If there are a variety of traits in the generation then those traits that help survival best will most likely survive!.
The human animal is producing huge numbers of young but, it tends not to die out in any differentiated way!. This certainly happened in the past and we can see the results in the adapted variations in skin pigmentation!. Now we have sunscreen: (so white people do not die in sunny countries) and better food (so black people's lower production of vitamins from the sun does not kill them in cold countries)!. So although the variations will still be arising there is less "selection" on the basis of inherited traits!.
There is no "exemption" from the "laws of nature"!. We die!. We just don't do it in interesting patterns!. Neither are we (from an evolutionary perspective) "perfect"!. "Perfect" is a teleological concept and has no place in scientific speak!. A causal explanation is one that starts back in time and leads to the event, a teleological explanation is one that looks at the end result works backward!. "Why did the bullet hit the barn door!?"
Cauasal Explanation: there was an explosion in the gun which propelled the bullet in the direction of the barn!.
Teleological Explanation: I aimed at the barnWww@QuestionHome@Com
Society's values and the intelligence that man was endowed with by the Creator may have combined to make the evolutionary process for man more gradual than it is for other species!.
Man is unique among the species in that he can create tools which compensate for traits that might have made him an entree for a sabre-toothed lion back in mankind's stage as hunter-gatherers!. Poor eyesight, lack of hearing, or other birth defects are no longer the immediate death sentence at one point!.
The majority of society believes that life is worth preserving and so we help those people who may not be perfect physical specimens!. And so traits that otherwise might be weeded out by environmental factors are preserved!.
This does not mean we aren't changing!. Enter a building constructed 500 years ago, and you'll notice that the building's original inhabitants were much shorter!. What percdentage of the height increase is due to better nutrition versus evolution is difficult to determineWww@QuestionHome@Com
Bloody good question - and one that I have been asking and trying to find answers to what seems like my whole life!
But I think I have found the answer - in the book, 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins!.
I have always believed in the Darwinian theory, but until a couple of months ago, never read his origin of species book for myself, all my understanding of it was third hand!.
And even when I did read his book, it was all too complex for me to thoroughly understand, but, along with that book, I bought Dawkins' book, and it simplified the Darwinian theory to layman's terms!.
It's a fantastic book, I've got 2 more chapters to go, but in this chapter, he talks about how humans are unique from any other species - and it's due to our brain and the 'memes' that control it!
Have a look, I will guarantee you you will enjoy!Www@QuestionHome@Com
Humans are changing as well as everything else!. You need to realise that evolution happens over millions of years so we cant expect to see it unfolding before our eyes in large animals!. (I'm sure you are aware of bacteria, virus's etc, which we can see!.) Homo Sapien Sapiens have been around for approximately 200,000 years!. Of course an ancestor 210,000 years old would have looked almost the same as a 200,000 ancestor!. In the last 40,000 years our body structure hasn't changed much but there is evidence that our brains have grown!. Nothing changes dramatically year to year, different species names on the same ancestral line merely show the species has changed enough to merit it's own species!.
Evolution is about survival, not optimisation!. Any species that is alive now is by default the fittest as it's ancestors are dead and it is not!. Every species alive now is as evolved as we are, that includes snails and carrots!.
An interesting fact !.!.!.humans are 10 times loser related to chimpanzees than mice are to rats!.
I would highly recommend you read "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins!. It explains evolution much better than I ever could!.
also, making the rather ostentatious presumption that you are Christian (though it may be helpful for other faiths) if you are committed to retaining your faith and want to reconcile evolution with the bible read "A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution" By Kenneth R!. Miller!.
Finally, a couple of things I would advise you not so say as they will make most 'evolutionists' hostile!.!.!.!.
*"Evolution is just a theory" as is the earth orbiting the sun!.
*"There are no transitional fossils" - Almost every fossil found is a transitional fossil!
I hope this helps and I hope you read up on it, it's interesting stuff!.Www@QuestionHome@Com