If you live in an environment that has a lot of malaria then having sickle cell trait is an advantage and improves survival

It is an example of how natural selection protects a trait dependant on the environment. Natural selection is the main mechanism through which evolution works.

Why wasn't there always a human there to put boxes in a room near a banana?

If that's what your biology teacher thought, your biology teacher should stay his little world and out of the real world where the rest of us reside.

Then how can natural selection occur? As you said, they were always resistant.

:Graucho

So you don't believe in mutation?

I'll answer the 99% gene similarity question since noone else did; there are an enormous amount of genes, and most if not all earthly animals have a goodly share of perfectly identical genes as well, genes for basics that never needed to change. Therefore small flunctuations can result in huge change.

You're basically arguing that nothing is fact therefore you can believe whatever you want and all beliefs are equal.

I don't believe that. I believe that evidence and methodology make some things much more likely than others.

You can also believe that Santa Claus brings you presents at Christmas time if you want to. No one can stop you. Go ahead. There's a reason why you don't, of course. It's true that if you want to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or that there are dragons living in caves no one can prove you wrong.

You don't have to believe what I believe but if your argument come down to "I can believe whatever I want no matter how kooky" it pretty much kills the entire possibility of a real debate.

I hope you're a woman. :uhoh

Look, it's a stretch to say that a tree branch is a tool as we know it. Even when man was supposedly in caves, he created tools. He didn't just use branches, he carved out the ends into sharp spears, he sharpened the rocks and so on.

But anyway, we're getting off topic. We're 99% similar in DNA yet the chimp is clearly far inferior. We didn't evolve from the chimp. This was the chimp from the beginning of chimps. We were always man.
That's just my belief. There is litle or no evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps. After all, I took his class over 30 years ago.

I have a theory that in the center of the earth resides an alien race. Prove me wrong or believe it.

Show me some evidence.

So do I!

Even teachers teaching for 60 years can get it wrong.

Haven't you ever met somebody at a job who said something like, "What are you talking about? I've been working here for 30 years, I know what I'm talking about and you don't" when you actually know the idiot is dead wrong?

Happens all the time.

Mike brought it up. He asked why if our DNA is so similar why we are different. The question was answered. No one has said that is evidence for evolution.

You don't prove scientific theories, you attempt to falsify them.

You don't prove stocktrader23 theories either. :Graucho

You didn't answer the question. You showed some poor examples of how we are "similar".

You're arguing that complexity makes a tool a tool, rather then the fact that it takes abstract thought to use something outside of yourself to do something.

Eventually he did that, but what did he do before he honed his tools?

It only takes 1% of DNA code to make that difference. Do you have any idea how large our DNA code is? 1% is a LOT of information.

Evolution doesn't say we evolved from chimps or apes. Didn't you read the whole thread?

The wood hadnt evolved into a box yet, maybe as time goes on and we evolve, instead of trees growing, boxes will grow, then the monkeys can climb on the boxes to get the bannanas without humans help.

I'm not asking you to prove it, I'm asking for some evidence.

That's the logical fallacy of "proving a negative" and that's not how evolutions works. What you just did is exactly what christians do with god. Try again bucksnort. :glugglug

My mother in law is a nurse. She bases her entire life and thinking around what she read in medical books while she was in school over 30 years ago even though much of it is completely wrong. :winkwink:

What? Your question doesn't make sense

Then you define intelligence. And keep in mind humans would not be as advanced as they are were it not for opposable thumbs and protein from meat.

I wasn't trying to prove anything, it was a joke.

Try again Tony Robbins.

It's also what evolutionists do. They have a theory based on a premise and now they try to find things to support it. There has been quite a lack of evidence thus far.

As do I...and probably as...any other reasonable/logical thinking person does...but when the book is still open on any subject...I tend not to become "religious" in my belief and insistent that my "belief" is the only acceptable alternative...as people like Joe Sixpack seem to do.

Mike33,

So you don't believe in mutation? I ask because you seem to think that a populations DNA is static (e.g. there was always resistance).

Why do you call a chimp inferior? Is a rat inferior? Is a cockroach? How about a virus? Humanity does not stand at the apex of evolution.

You're correct. Humans did NOT evolve from chimps. Chimps and humans have a common ancestor. DNA similarity IS evidence of exactly that. DNA changes with time through mutation. If you extrapolate the amount of expected variation with time you would estimate that humans and chimps have an ancestor between 5 and 7 million years ago. That 5-7 million years ago your DNA and bobo's DNA were the same.

That guy at the job is usually wrong because he hasn't bothered to learn anything about his job since he got it. In most jobs, there are changes that you are expected to stay abreast of. The teacher might be one of those, but that doesn't prove anything either way.

Good scientists try to find evidence to disprove it. Since you don't believe it, it would seem reasonable to present some arguments that appear to you to disprove it.

Stocktrader23 needs to prove his theory, then we will attempt to falsify his proof.

I was just giving an example of how your teacher was a nutjob.

Intelligence certainly encompasses more than an animal that appears to live in complete harmony with it's environment, not from it's own volition, but by necessity. The dolphin does not choose to be harmonious with the world. He is that way and was that way from birth by being a dolphin and he can do nothing else.

And what hospital does she work at?

I am from the future and I've seen it myself.

It doesn't matter, they are nearly all the same.

I read somewhere that the dolphin was once a land creature that chose to return to the sea. But of course, some wacky evolutionist probably made it up.