OK, people dissing on evolution and arguing over its truth is one of my pet peeves, so I feel the need to have my say.
This is because evolution, is fact. There is NOTHING to argue about. It is completely obvious, and I'll explain why.
Imagine a species. Doesn't matter what they are, but each creature will have different physical characteristics, and through many generations of breeding some characteristics will be more attentuated in some creatures then others. So, let's say this species has fur coats. Some of the creatures will have thicker coats then others. Now, the... uhh, sun cools down, and brings about a particularly harsh winter (it doesn't really matter why ;) ). It just so happens that the winter is so cold that only the creatures with the thickest coats can survive. BANG! The species has evolved. All of a sudden, ALL the members of the species have thick coats, because the ones which don't are DEAD.
There ya go. Evolution by natural selection in a nutshell. To use an example of this actually occuring, there was a particular species of moth in england. some of which where light and some of which were dark. I forget the details exactly, but during the industrial revolution, the amount of pollution in the air increased dramatically. This had the effect of darkening the trees, from all the dust and such stuck to it. What effect did this have on the moths? Well, now the light moths were really easy to spot on the dark background, and they all got eaten. End result: The moths evolved to become dark :)
(And yes, that's a true story, or I've been incredibly mislead by multiple people)
So, like I was saying, evolution happens, it is fact. Whether we evolved from apes is another matter (though this is apparently generally accepted in the scientific community).
Now, you are saying "Hold on, doesn't evolution take a long time?"
Well, yes. And no.
What I have described above is evolution within a species, and clearly it doesn't require a great deal of time (see moth example).
However (and I am rapidly getting out of my league), if we talk about evolving from species to species, that IS going to take a long time.
I have been told that such evolution can occur in a similar fashion, but may require geographic relocation (That is, a species is somehow separated into two groups, they end up in different parts of the world, one group adapts to it's new climate and evolves into a new species). This requires many generations, however.
Another method of evolving into a new species I have heard of is mutation. You've likely heard of this, radiation from someplace causing a mutation of the genes of a creature, changing it to a different species. On average, this is going to take a long time, since such mutations aren't frequent, and many of them are fatal. So it tends to take a lot of time before a mutation actually creates another species (and I'm not sure how this happens, like I said, I'm getting out of my league)
Finally, on the god side of things (sorry, couldn't resist ;) )...
If god created the universe, what created god?
This is because evolution, is fact. There is NOTHING to argue about. It is completely obvious, and I'll explain why.
Imagine a species. Doesn't matter what they are, but each creature will have different physical characteristics, and through many generations of breeding some characteristics will be more attentuated in some creatures then others. So, let's say this species has fur coats. Some of the creatures will have thicker coats then others. Now, the... uhh, sun cools down, and brings about a particularly harsh winter (it doesn't really matter why ;) ). It just so happens that the winter is so cold that only the creatures with the thickest coats can survive. BANG! The species has evolved. All of a sudden, ALL the members of the species have thick coats, because the ones which don't are DEAD.
There ya go. Evolution by natural selection in a nutshell. To use an example of this actually occuring, there was a particular species of moth in england. some of which where light and some of which were dark. I forget the details exactly, but during the industrial revolution, the amount of pollution in the air increased dramatically. This had the effect of darkening the trees, from all the dust and such stuck to it. What effect did this have on the moths? Well, now the light moths were really easy to spot on the dark background, and they all got eaten. End result: The moths evolved to become dark :)
(And yes, that's a true story, or I've been incredibly mislead by multiple people)
So, like I was saying, evolution happens, it is fact. Whether we evolved from apes is another matter (though this is apparently generally accepted in the scientific community).
Now, you are saying "Hold on, doesn't evolution take a long time?"
Well, yes. And no.
What I have described above is evolution within a species, and clearly it doesn't require a great deal of time (see moth example).
However (and I am rapidly getting out of my league), if we talk about evolving from species to species, that IS going to take a long time.
I have been told that such evolution can occur in a similar fashion, but may require geographic relocation (That is, a species is somehow separated into two groups, they end up in different parts of the world, one group adapts to it's new climate and evolves into a new species). This requires many generations, however.
Another method of evolving into a new species I have heard of is mutation. You've likely heard of this, radiation from someplace causing a mutation of the genes of a creature, changing it to a different species. On average, this is going to take a long time, since such mutations aren't frequent, and many of them are fatal. So it tends to take a lot of time before a mutation actually creates another species (and I'm not sure how this happens, like I said, I'm getting out of my league)
Finally, on the god side of things (sorry, couldn't resist ;) )...
If god created the universe, what created god?