Evolution is just a theory (page 3)

There is an interesting article in the latest National Geographic about dinosaurs. It made me think of this topic because it is about the area where the Mormons thrive, Utah, scientists have found an amazingly varied amount of dinosaurs skeletons. 77 million years ago that area, which is now desert, was a sub tropical wetland similar to Northern Louisiana today. It was part of a land mass that included parts of what is now the western US and Canada and Mexico. This area had a number of climates and was abundant with plants and many species of dinosaurs, so many so it was a puzzle, why so much differentiation?

The theory is that the varied climates allowed for rapid evolutionary change. While dinosaurs could freely roam, the abundant food made that unnecessary. Two groups of the same species of dino would diverge, each adapting to their individual climate. Since they had no need to travel to get food, there was no interbreeding of the two groups, eventually one or both groups changed so much they didn't see each other as the same species, so didn't interbreed

This divergence might have been encouraged by sexual selection. Natural selection acts on things that are necessary for survival, like teeth and claws, sexual selection is all about what will attract a mate, like peacock tails and moose antlers. The Utah herbivores had characteristics, like grilled horns, spikes and frills, that would have been useless against a predator, but we're very effective for showing off. Some of this is just theory at this point, but scientists continue to uncover more fossil evidence every year, hopefully they will eventually know what happened to these creatures that ruled the earth for a very long time.

I am just glad I can read things like this and not have to reject it because of clinging to belief in the bible as being factual and literal. Evolution is being proved every day, over and over. Not believing in evolution is equivalent to believing in a flat earth, it just makes you look stupid.

Cold Steel

Very well said, LR.

On the other hand, if I had a dime (it used to be a nickel) for every news article or account that read, "Thus and so completely changes everything we thought we knew...," I'd be a very wealthy guy.

At BYU, the only textbook I saved was the one on astronomy. It was a topic I enjoyed reading and studying about. Several years ago, my wife and I were cleaning out things and I saw my old textbook. I took a break and pulled it out to read it. After about ten minutes of flipping through it and reading it, I held it over the big trash bin we were using and I dropped the book in it.

"Why are you doing that," my wife asked. "That's a nice book...don't you want to keep it?"

I explained that in the years since that book was written, just about everything had changed! That's not a condemnation of science. Just about any book along those lines change. That's how science works. My wife wanted to give the book to the Salvation Army, but I told her no. It was so much out of date, why take the chance that someone else will read it and believe it? So now I buy DVDs on astronomy that probably also will be out of date in fifteen years.

What we know about science is always changing. It wasn't too long ago that we didn't know about galaxies. We just looked up and saw stars. In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble used the 100-inch Mount Wilson telescope to definitively prove that the patchy blurs first thought to be distant stars were, in fact, galaxies that lay outside of the Milky Way. Now, many people believe that there are mutiple universes outside of our own, perhaps millions or billions of them. Perhaps this process of creation has been going on for far longer than previously thought. There may also be variant universes paralleling our own, and that also is a mind bender.

My point is that it's fine to believe scientific marvels, but always be willing to accept new ideas.

Oh, one more thing I just thought of. Years ago at BYU, a professor of ancient scripture, a highly intelligent individual, made a statement regarding geology to a newspaper reporter. Our geology department went nuts and one of our professors spoke out and essentially said, professors of ancient scriptures should not be speaking on geological findings, especially when they are in error. The first professor stuck to his comments and the geology department challenged the professor to a debate with the head of the department. This was well before the Internet, of course, and the debate started right on schedule. In about ten minutes, though, the ancient scripture professor had won the debate. He had read a Dutch article in a scientific journal that had uncovered something new and that was the source. The geology professor, embarrassed at being showed up, acknowledged the finding over the following week, but had added that all the textbooks had taught this subject the way he believed it to be. The first professor, when asked about this by the same reporter, stated that textbooks contain only the established part of science and are the last places one should check out when doing research. The sources one should turn to, he said, are scientific and trade journals in the areas being investigated, because that's where the new things will be found. In fact, it was this professor who told us that any textbook over ten years old should probably be trashed.

I think he was probably right.

Viviane

My point is that it's fine to believe scientific marvels, but always be willing to accept new ideas.

You just described science!

cofty

What we know about science is always changing

But there is a great many things that we know for a certainty. The earth isn't flat. All living things descended from a common ancestor by evolution.

These and many other things will never change. Just because we don't know everything it doesn't mean we don't know anything.

Evolution is just a theory

hamsterbait

LisaRose

Cold Steel

Viviane

cofty

Jon Preston

cofty

Jon Preston

jgnat

Jon Preston

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