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	<title>Comments on: Thinking about Evolution</title>
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	<description>...travelling but never arriving</description>
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		<title>By: Oluwafemi Owagbemi</title>
		<link>http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-72</link>
		<dc:creator>Oluwafemi Owagbemi</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:35:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-72</guid>
		<description>I must add that I also do not believe that man as we know him now, being the most complex of species, will evolve into any higher life form. I believe everything the bible says about our origins and our destination!</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I must add that I also do not believe that man as we know him now, being the most complex of species, will evolve into any higher life form. I believe everything the bible says about our origins and our destination!</p>
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		<title>By: Oluwafemi Owagbemi</title>
		<link>http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-71</link>
		<dc:creator>Oluwafemi Owagbemi</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:31:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-71</guid>
		<description>Evolution is not just a biological concept. It occurs in all facets of life. It is neither merely a human phenomenon but is common to all life and even sometimes to non-living things as we manipulate them to suit our own evolution. I believe the aim of all evolution is to increase the chances of survival and to improve the quality of that survival.

I will not pretend to fully understand biological evolution by natural selection as it is a concept that requires some serious study to be fully apprehended. Moreover, there are many theories as to the processes involved and as to the actual members of the supposed ancestry of modern Homo sapiens or Homo sapiens sapiens and our said relationship with this ancestry. What is certain is that fossils have been found and probably many more will be. If these findings are real, as I am apt to believe they are, and not forged, then these so called human species from the early australopith to the late Homo must have existed. The facts speak for themselves. Whether what is propounded from these findings is correct is another matter entirely. Science itself evolves as more information becomes available. Many of the theories that reigned back in the day are now obsolete. The Earth was once believed to be flat and suppuration was once thought to be essential for wound healing.

Faith that is true does not deny the facts. It seeks to offer the truth about them. This is where controversy should arise if there are dissenting views and not over undeniable facts. Creation science has therefore given room in creationism for the facts presented by the fossils. This young-earth creationism and non-traditional old-earth creationism does not deny the facts but offers possible explanations while maintaining belief in creation. Their theories are Flood Geology for young-earth creationism and the Day-Age and Gap theories for old-earth. Traditional creationists, I believe, still stick with creation without entertaining the possibility of pre-historic man’s existence.

I believe that all life as we now know it was created by God at a time that the earth was without form and void or unoccupied. I believe that all of mankind as it exists today is from the first man and woman – Adam and Eve, both of whom were created by God and did not evolve from a lower life form. Adam was formed as a man and he came to life when God breathed into his nostrils. He formed Eve from the rib which he took out of Adam and thus set humanity into motion. They only needed to procreate thereafter. They both started as intelligent beings capable of social interaction. I believe Lucifer was cast down after his rebellion before this creation or re-creation if you choose. This may have led to the destruction of the world which existed then and probably had all these pre-historic creatures such as the so-called ancestors of man and dinosaurs, fossils of whom we see today. Hence, the earth became formless and vacant.

I can understand adaptations such as a weight-lifter building muscle and having his/her bones become more sturdy or the loss of such muscle mass in times of starvation. I can also understand an increase in my skin pigmentation when I’m exposed to more intense sun rays and a return to my normal complexion when I’m back to less ‘radiation’. I can even understand how long powerful arms and curved fingers, features that made australopiths agile in trees became less pronounced in Homo who did not need to be a good climber. What I’m yet to understand though is how these phenotypes translate into the genes for expression in generations in the distant future or how organisms from distant phyla or classes could have been related in the past however distant that past might be. Homo sapiens sapiens may therefore someday evolve into some species yet unknown once we can no longer interbreed and thus become reproductively isolated, right?

My limited understanding however does not repudiate the possibility of biological evolution. I in fact tend to believe that the power that makes it possible for mankind to be perpetuated by procreation such that only one man and woman needed to be created, and that fertilization produces a mass of cells which becomes an embryo, fetus etc., that such power can also cause organisms to evolve to higher life forms. I am therefore not afraid to believe biological evolution could have taken place sometime. I however believe Adam was not a product of this process. I also think it is paradoxical to believe God has power to create the world we live in and to do all we believe he has done, indeed to say he is both omnificent and omnipotent and yet deny the possibility that he could carry out something as simple as biological evolution – at least as simple as the naturalists or Darwinists have portrayed it.

I will end by conceding that just as the scientists have insufficient information to make incontrovertible conclusions from their findings, creationists may also have insufficient information to refute the theory of evolution by natural selection save to say Adam was not a part of it. This refutation in the extent to which it can go is based on the bible which I must say, we have not yet fully understood. The scientists work ceaselessly to improve their assertions. Creationists must also seek to understand the bible better.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Evolution is not just a biological concept. It occurs in all facets of life. It is neither merely a human phenomenon but is common to all life and even sometimes to non-living things as we manipulate them to suit our own evolution. I believe the aim of all evolution is to increase the chances of survival and to improve the quality of that survival.</p>
<p>I will not pretend to fully understand biological evolution by natural selection as it is a concept that requires some serious study to be fully apprehended. Moreover, there are many theories as to the processes involved and as to the actual members of the supposed ancestry of modern Homo sapiens or Homo sapiens sapiens and our said relationship with this ancestry. What is certain is that fossils have been found and probably many more will be. If these findings are real, as I am apt to believe they are, and not forged, then these so called human species from the early australopith to the late Homo must have existed. The facts speak for themselves. Whether what is propounded from these findings is correct is another matter entirely. Science itself evolves as more information becomes available. Many of the theories that reigned back in the day are now obsolete. The Earth was once believed to be flat and suppuration was once thought to be essential for wound healing.</p>
<p>Faith that is true does not deny the facts. It seeks to offer the truth about them. This is where controversy should arise if there are dissenting views and not over undeniable facts. Creation science has therefore given room in creationism for the facts presented by the fossils. This young-earth creationism and non-traditional old-earth creationism does not deny the facts but offers possible explanations while maintaining belief in creation. Their theories are Flood Geology for young-earth creationism and the Day-Age and Gap theories for old-earth. Traditional creationists, I believe, still stick with creation without entertaining the possibility of pre-historic man’s existence.</p>
<p>I believe that all life as we now know it was created by God at a time that the earth was without form and void or unoccupied. I believe that all of mankind as it exists today is from the first man and woman – Adam and Eve, both of whom were created by God and did not evolve from a lower life form. Adam was formed as a man and he came to life when God breathed into his nostrils. He formed Eve from the rib which he took out of Adam and thus set humanity into motion. They only needed to procreate thereafter. They both started as intelligent beings capable of social interaction. I believe Lucifer was cast down after his rebellion before this creation or re-creation if you choose. This may have led to the destruction of the world which existed then and probably had all these pre-historic creatures such as the so-called ancestors of man and dinosaurs, fossils of whom we see today. Hence, the earth became formless and vacant.</p>
<p>I can understand adaptations such as a weight-lifter building muscle and having his/her bones become more sturdy or the loss of such muscle mass in times of starvation. I can also understand an increase in my skin pigmentation when I’m exposed to more intense sun rays and a return to my normal complexion when I’m back to less ‘radiation’. I can even understand how long powerful arms and curved fingers, features that made australopiths agile in trees became less pronounced in Homo who did not need to be a good climber. What I’m yet to understand though is how these phenotypes translate into the genes for expression in generations in the distant future or how organisms from distant phyla or classes could have been related in the past however distant that past might be. Homo sapiens sapiens may therefore someday evolve into some species yet unknown once we can no longer interbreed and thus become reproductively isolated, right?</p>
<p>My limited understanding however does not repudiate the possibility of biological evolution. I in fact tend to believe that the power that makes it possible for mankind to be perpetuated by procreation such that only one man and woman needed to be created, and that fertilization produces a mass of cells which becomes an embryo, fetus etc., that such power can also cause organisms to evolve to higher life forms. I am therefore not afraid to believe biological evolution could have taken place sometime. I however believe Adam was not a product of this process. I also think it is paradoxical to believe God has power to create the world we live in and to do all we believe he has done, indeed to say he is both omnificent and omnipotent and yet deny the possibility that he could carry out something as simple as biological evolution – at least as simple as the naturalists or Darwinists have portrayed it.</p>
<p>I will end by conceding that just as the scientists have insufficient information to make incontrovertible conclusions from their findings, creationists may also have insufficient information to refute the theory of evolution by natural selection save to say Adam was not a part of it. This refutation in the extent to which it can go is based on the bible which I must say, we have not yet fully understood. The scientists work ceaselessly to improve their assertions. Creationists must also seek to understand the bible better.</p>
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		<title>By: Grant</title>
		<link>http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-68</link>
		<dc:creator>Grant</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:53:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-68</guid>
		<description>I am not an &quot;evolutionist&quot; (a term that makes about sense as calling anyone who believes gravity exists to be a &quot;gravitationalist&quot;). I am however a person who accept the clear, unequivocal, and absolutely overwhelming evidence in favor of evolutionary theory.

During secondary school education we may have briefly touched on the concept, but frankly at the time biology really didn&#039;t interest me and I remember nothing of it if we did discuss it (I was much more of a physics person then). But years later I became interested in the subject and read up on it in considerable detail... and after becoming well acquainted with the geologic, paleontological, genetic, molecular, etc... evidence and the massive convergence between all these different lines of inquiry on a single inescapable conclusion it leaves me dumbfounded that anyone can possibly stand up with a straight face and claim to doubt it occured and continues to do so and claim to know the first thing about the subject matter while they do so.

For cripes sake, the nested hierarchical pattern of endogenous retroviral insertions in the genetic code of the various primates is enough to establish *by itself* that evolution occured beyond any sane level of doubt... even if we didn&#039;t have the results of mountains of other phylogenetic testing, and the fossil record, and the nested hierarchy of all current existing lifeforms and on and on and on...

Denying evolutionary theory is every bit as absurd as denying that objects with mass exert an attractive force on each other. Plain and simple.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I am not an &#8220;evolutionist&#8221; (a term that makes about sense as calling anyone who believes gravity exists to be a &#8220;gravitationalist&#8221;). I am however a person who accept the clear, unequivocal, and absolutely overwhelming evidence in favor of evolutionary theory.</p>
<p>During secondary school education we may have briefly touched on the concept, but frankly at the time biology really didn&#8217;t interest me and I remember nothing of it if we did discuss it (I was much more of a physics person then). But years later I became interested in the subject and read up on it in considerable detail&#8230; and after becoming well acquainted with the geologic, paleontological, genetic, molecular, etc&#8230; evidence and the massive convergence between all these different lines of inquiry on a single inescapable conclusion it leaves me dumbfounded that anyone can possibly stand up with a straight face and claim to doubt it occured and continues to do so and claim to know the first thing about the subject matter while they do so.</p>
<p>For cripes sake, the nested hierarchical pattern of endogenous retroviral insertions in the genetic code of the various primates is enough to establish *by itself* that evolution occured beyond any sane level of doubt&#8230; even if we didn&#8217;t have the results of mountains of other phylogenetic testing, and the fossil record, and the nested hierarchy of all current existing lifeforms and on and on and on&#8230;</p>
<p>Denying evolutionary theory is every bit as absurd as denying that objects with mass exert an attractive force on each other. Plain and simple.</p>
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		<title>By: SA</title>
		<link>http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-67</link>
		<dc:creator>SA</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:02:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-67</guid>
		<description>@Harry:...and which of his conclusions do you consider irrelevant?
@Akinwale: Thanks. It doesn&#039;t necessarily have to contradict God or creationism as it were. What if God set the ball in motion to bring about life through evolution by natural selection...There are principles behind the organisation of the universe, planetary motion, the moons et cetera. Why can&#039;t there be such a principle in biology, and why can&#039;t that principle be natural selection?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>@Harry:&#8230;and which of his conclusions do you consider irrelevant?<br />
@Akinwale: Thanks. It doesn&#8217;t necessarily have to contradict God or creationism as it were. What if God set the ball in motion to bring about life through evolution by natural selection&#8230;There are principles behind the organisation of the universe, planetary motion, the moons et cetera. Why can&#8217;t there be such a principle in biology, and why can&#8217;t that principle be natural selection?</p>
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		<title>By: Akinwale Ayeni</title>
		<link>http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-66</link>
		<dc:creator>Akinwale Ayeni</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:30:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-66</guid>
		<description>SA, nice one. I don&#039;t know the group i belong to in your analysis but i&#039;v never really given evolution a serious thought. I like the prospect of the concept but nothing more. Maybe i need to take more interst(or maybe not!). The point is , i&#039;v always had the belief that it contradicts creationism. And then, God is ALWAYS right, isn&#039;t He?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>SA, nice one. I don&#8217;t know the group i belong to in your analysis but i&#8217;v never really given evolution a serious thought. I like the prospect of the concept but nothing more. Maybe i need to take more interst(or maybe not!). The point is , i&#8217;v always had the belief that it contradicts creationism. And then, God is ALWAYS right, isn&#8217;t He?</p>
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		<title>By: Harry</title>
		<link>http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-65</link>
		<dc:creator>Harry</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:17:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-65</guid>
		<description>First, Darwin had a Christian background and all... I think the point he lost it was when he began to philosophize a lot...he began to draw up very irrelevant conclusions...</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>First, Darwin had a Christian background and all&#8230; I think the point he lost it was when he began to philosophize a lot&#8230;he began to draw up very irrelevant conclusions&#8230;</p>
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		<title>By: SA</title>
		<link>http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-63</link>
		<dc:creator>SA</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:39:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-63</guid>
		<description>Thanks Harry for dropping a note. At what point do you think the &quot;originator&quot; (I presume you mean Charles Darwin) got it &quot;twisted&quot;?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Thanks Harry for dropping a note. At what point do you think the &#8220;originator&#8221; (I presume you mean Charles Darwin) got it &#8220;twisted&#8221;?</p>
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		<title>By: Harry</title>
		<link>http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-62</link>
		<dc:creator>Harry</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:58:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sasquare.com/?p=193#comment-62</guid>
		<description>Was talking to someone today and we came to a conclusion... some parts of the theories of evolution are right... I guess somewhere along the line...the originator got it twisted</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Was talking to someone today and we came to a conclusion&#8230; some parts of the theories of evolution are right&#8230; I guess somewhere along the line&#8230;the originator got it twisted</p>
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