I find it better not to fight ignorance with ignorance. It’s easy enough to explain to folks that we aren’t descended from any living species of ape, but rather from an extinct ape that gave rise to both chimps and humans. If they’re hard-core Creationists, of course, it isn’t going to matter what you say.
If you say we’re not descended from apes, the next logical question is: Well, then what are we descended from? At that point you either say “an ape”, or you lie and say… well, I don’t what you’d say other than “a monkey”, which puts you back to square one.
I’m not fighting ignorance with ignorance, I’m fighting ignorance by pointing ignorance out. If you can show them that what they think of as evolution is in fact not what science thinks of as evolution, and they actually believe you, you can try to get them to understand it better, and hopefully get past the problems they have with it. Showing them that the problems they think are there really aren’t leaves them with no problems. Of course, they have to believe you first.
The argument that started this was ‘If people evolved from apes why do apes still exist?’. While you can say that man did evolve from ape, the question puts special meaning on the word ape, and so I don’t think it should be used again in the answer. It’s obvious that the questioner intends ‘apes’ to mean ‘modern apes’ and is not distinguishing between apes then and apes now. If you say we did evolve from apes, you risk them thinking that we evolved from modern apes, which just reinforces the validity of their question. My answer takes focus away from this and I try to give a better understanding of the ideas. Yes, we did evolve from a common ancestor, and yes that ancestor was an ape of some kind. I just think it’s best to get them away from the bad ideas first, then try to get them to understand the good ones.
There were, indeed, many chicken-sized dinosaurs (though not necessarily many chicken-sized species of dinosaur). However, the sheep-sized estimate is probably a bit on the low side. This graph shows that the average dinosaur weight (out of about 63 genera) was ~850kg - substantially larger than your average sheep, to say the least. I’d take that number with a grain or two of salt, though, as it only represents a sample of ~10% of all known dinosaur genera, and I’m not sure which ones were picked for the study.
It’s easy enough to just modify the statement to “man didn’t evolve from modern apes”, isn’t it? (Or does ‘modern’ have a broader paleontological meaning that makes this also untrue?)
I don’t think he does… He used to but then he read this thing about the cambrian explosion and now I think he doesn’t… he says it can’t be proven no matter what… but its the cambrian explosion that really turned him…that’s what i’m trying to understand… I just had forgotten the name of it when i oringally post this
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. If the person is a die-hard Creationist, he isn’t going to accept anything you say. If the person is open to understanding, it makes sense to give them the straight dope, so to speak. The real message is: All things alive today evolved from some earlier form that may or may not have looked like what you see today. Humans and chimps evolved from an ancestor that may have looked more chimp-like than human-like, but it wasn’t either a chimp or a human and almost certainly didn’t look exactly like either. (Actually, we know it didn’t look like a human. We don’t have any chimp ancestor fossils older than about 500k years, so we don’t know much what their ancestors looked like. The human fossils we have from around 5 or 6M years are very fragmentary and pretty controversial, too.)
well actually he’s my fiance and we’ve date for 6 years and we hottly debate and mostly disagree on everything from religion to politics… BUT he likes debating with me… so i don’t have to worry about getting dumped
If you join this MB, you’ll get enough help that you’ll be able to debate him like he was a little rag doll you could fling around with your pinky finger.
Can you give more information about which aspects of the Cambrian Explosion he takes issue with? Does he deny that it happened at all, or that it means what paleontologists say it means (specifically, it is thought that it represents the time when there were sufficient creatures with fosslizable hard parts, in sufficient population sizes, that fossils could now be found in statistically significant numbers – thus the seeming “explosion” in fossils)? Or is his issue something else entirely?
Ok so now can someone explain to be the cambrian explosion? Or point me in the right direction…You people obviously know about this topic and I’ve tried researching and end up with nothing… i need help!
Wikipedia is probably as good a place to start as any: entry for Cambrian Explosion. See also here. Essentially, that’s when, in the fossil record, we start to see all the major animal groups appearing for the first time. Furthermore, it all seemed to happen very quickly (geologically speaking; 100,000 years, for example, is a long time to us, but practically an instant in the expanse of geological time).
The appearance, then, is one of “spontaneous creation”; however, appearances can be deceiving. The current scientific explanation is that it marks the period in evolution when fossilizable hard parts became much more common in a wider number of animal groups (we do have fossils which predate the Cambrian explosion), so all of a sudden you have a much more robust fossil record. Why the hard parts all of a sudden begin to show up is a matter of some controversy (discussed in the links above, but which can be clarified here if needed).
Did you actually read my post? I’ve already agreed with your point multiple times. I’m trying to explain why using the word apes in response to that question, a question posed by someone who obviously does not understand evolution and may have simply been lied to about it, might further confuse things. Yes it can be explained, but you have to start a person like this out with simple things. Just jumping right into something they don’t understand is just going to push them away.
Yes, I read your post. I think you’re making it more complicated than it has to be. People aren’t stupid. If they actually want to understand the concept, they can. If they don’t, then it doesn’t matter what you say.
I think he just doesn’t understand why there’s tons of fossils from some time periods and then other time periods in between there is nothing or at least that is how a book he read described it. He read a book about the cambrian explosion… and I read part of it… but the author of this book (i wish i could remember the name) basically said that it was a time when there were no fossils at all and made the claim that dinosaurs basically “appeared” out of nowhere. I thought it didn’t sound right so I read the “evidence” the author was using to prove his claim, and according to him it is proven by the cambrian explosion. I had never heard of the cambrian explosion before then. Now talking with you all, I’m beginning to think that this author may have not been the brightest crayon in the crayon box…
ok i checked out that link. It was very informative thanks! i’m going to have him read it… this explains it a lot better than whatever book it was he was reading
By the way, the material your boyfriend was reading, it wasn’t Kent Hovind, was it? I’ve heard him talk about the CE before, and there’s lots of material to show that Kent is a con man (such as the fact that he’s currently sitting in prison).
