Evolution
 

Discuss it here.
BTW, Berkley does address the Micro/Macro issue.
Evolution is evolution.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/ = http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolib...es/uelogo3.gif

http://tolweb.org/tree/



Really good overview/timeline, as well as many links on the theory of Speciation:
Species, Speciation and the Environment
By Niles Eldredge

Good links, rkzenrage.

Here is one of, if not the best evolution versus creationism database on the web. It is a huge website and covers almost every issue on evolution and the origin of life.

http://www.talkorigins.org/

I will read the articles, but before that I just wanted to start by asking a question.

From what I know life started with like plasma fusing with organic particles. Or something along those lines. Anyway, how does that make life?

Only God can answer that at this point.

From what I know, we don't exactly how life was formed but we know that proteins can be formed in the right conditions.

This could help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life

Thank you very much.

The Sagan video in the original post has a good explanation. In short, the first proto-life was a self-replicating molecule. Without predators, and in a vast ocean of random organic molecules, it didn't need the complex protection of a cell. When resources got scarce, competition became a factor, and things became more complicated.

God.

(I maintain my position that there is no inconsistency between a religious and scientific explanation. Once you stop seeing them as mutually exclusive opposing sides, you step back and go, "Okay, yeah, it could work that way too." The Big Bang and Evolution are just as miraculous as a carpenter's son walking on water.)

Life started with the egg. Then came the chicken. DUH!

Are you sure?

:biglaugha :biggrinpi

This is loony, but fun to watch. http://www.tv-links.co.uk/show.do/9/4806.

I did not post this because of the creationism aspect, though that is interesting, but the comments on Theory, which some seem to have issues with... not in here so far, but many do and I love how they put it in here.

That's pretty much my position too.

It might be coincidence, but I think if you showed a primitive person a movie of the creation of the universe and the origins of life and then asked them to tell the tale to others, I think you'd get pretty much the first few paragraphs of Genesis.

Certainly not creationism.

I'm down with evolution.

I think your highlighting "primitive" proved the point. She is saying both are viable and not mutually exclusive.

I don't see it, but no one has described it to me sufficiently I guess.
Science is about facts and accepting the unknown.
Religion is about filling the unknown with "faith"/"mythology".
The two are not compatible.
Not a value statement, just a fact.

I will have to respectfully disagree. I think that religion is completely about accepting the unknown. I do not think science is at all about accepting the unknown. Every science project I was ever involved in was all about finding the unknown. I do believe that there can be a God AND that life can evolve based on environment.

It depends what you mean by "accepting the unknown". Scientists accept that they have no explanation at present. Religion has an explanation- "God did it", but accepts that God's ways are impossible for mortals to understand.

In science, an unknown is a target. In religion, it is a conclusion.

Sure, science is about the unknown, that is the point, discovering.

Most religions are not about that, most are about the God of the gaps.
Sure there can be, and there can be garden fairies... there can be lots of things.
I just see no reason to believe in either until I see evidence.
What is the point?

Also, if you do decide to; which god, there are thousands to choose from, no one has any more credibility than any other or any more reason to buy into than the other?
Make a list and toss a pebble, pick one that matches your outfit, it makes no sense to me without something to base it on?

Not at all, Religion explains why it all happened but not how. Just because I know God caused it to happen, it in no way precludes me wondering how and trying to figure that out.

"The Lord works in mysterious ways", doesn't mean he doesn't want us to figure it out, we just aren't knowledgeable enough yet. That's why God and evolution are perfectly compatible, the why and how.

Further, I'm not afraid of God being pissed about that, because he can easily keep me from finding out what he doesn't want me to know.

If you believe "God did it", then there is some level where you have to say "this bit was magic". Otherwise, God isn't needed. A Young Earth Creationist will say that at the level described literally in the Bible, and a more reasonable person will say it happens at some level past what has been discovered so far by science. But both have unknowns filled by "God did it".

I believe God did it, but that's no reason to ever stop trying to figure out how. It's never a reason to say well this is all we need to know, stop here... that's silly. That's why I have no time for creationists that ignore science. Humans will always want to know everything, the whole nine yards.

Adam Savage of MythBusters said this:

"My goal this year is to prove natural selection on the show. It's gonna take a while, it's gonna be very hard to make it fascinating on film in the context of our narrative structure, but I figure screw it. The sky's the limit. Let's do natural selection. I'm sick of fifty percent of this country thinking creationism is reasonable. It's appalling. And I have the unique ability, maybe, to sell this idea to Discovery, and they'll, they might allow me to do it, and I'm gonna try as hard as I can."

Very cool.