Incredible Animals

[Jam930]

My main question is...how could the theory of evolution still be considered possible? Most of these things that just can't possibly be the result of evolution.

Ostriches - Can move their wind pipe around to the back of their neck right before a battle, it increases their chances of survival.

Flying squirrel - Can leap from trees and glide through the forest.

"Jesus" Lizard - Can run across water with ease, escaping from predators.

Peacocks - That huge beautiful tail on male peacocks, it can also fly with it.

Chameleon - Can camoflauge into its surrounding to hide itself from enemies. Eyes that are controlled seperately, improved visual limits.

Snakes - Dislocate their own jaw to eat animals larger than their heads.

Great White Shark - Has more than 3,000 teeth at any given time.

Parrots/Crows/Ravens - Can learn to speak hundreds of english words.

Humans - Heh

Post any that you know of.
No links please, we want a list on this site!
I'm sure there are millions more.

[evilbutterfly]

could the theory of evolution still be considered possible

alot of people forget that evolution is a very very very very VERY slow process. it may seem crazy that these thing came about because animals evolve, but evolution is a real. just look at bacteria. if evolution was not real, we would have completely killed all the bacteria by now. but no, there's always at least one that, by chance, can survive. some mutations are just weird and make no sense, but may serve a purpose when the need arises.

for example, some people are naturally good at DDR. they can, through some lucky recombining of DNA, move their legs extremely fast and hit those arrows with precision. now, if there was some man-eating beast that could only be killed by kicking it extremely fast in a few spots, those DDRing skills would help certain people survive. thus, all the crappy DDR players would die. over time, all that would be left would be good DDR players who could beat the shit out of those man killing creatures.

that was a terrible example, but the similar things do happen in nature. for example, cheetahs and gazelle. cheetahs are the fastest land animals, gazelles are second. every generation gets faster and faster, because all the slowest gazelles get eaten, and all the slowest cheetahs starve. therefore, they have gotten faster as time goes on, and will only get even faster.

thats just how things work. alot of people will say evolution is dumb because if it was real then people would have evolved into something else by now. well, they fail to realize that we have no natural pressures forcing us to evolve. the only way we could make ourselves better as a whole would be to act like Hitler. if we just started killing off all stupid, ugly, handicapped, short, or otherwise flawed people, we could "purify" the human race and evolve. fortunately, we humans would never let such a thing happen, so no evolution for us until we get hunted by aliens or something like that.

[JustJono]

Yeah, I believe in evolution and I believe in God. Flame me if you want, but I do.
The reason we haven't evolved into anything yet is because we've only been homosapien for a small amount of time. We've been around for a little over 3000 years (I think?), and that's considered a very small amount of time compared to the time it takes for something to make a significant mutation.

What I don't understand in evolution, is how we stopped mitosis and started mating with the 'opposite gender'. Maybe there's a logical explanation for that, but I obviously don't know it.

[Jam930]

Why doesn't every animal camoflauge then?

Whales and dolphins - Can sleep half of their brain at a time. The other half watches for predators.

Bats - There are over 1000 species of bat.

Cheetah - Can run 70 miles per hour.



So cute!

[Lupin_the_3rd]

Deer- ability to freeze in front of cars in order to get hit...

whereas this used to be an effective tactic for its predators, the amount of human progress in such a short amount of time has lapped evolution a million times.

many animals haven't kept up with evolution, which is why the Florida Panther (and thousands of other species) is becoming extinct

[tomdabombrules]

not only is it mutation, its survival of the fittest. take 2 animals, 1 has a mutation that, for example, can be camoflauged, while the other can't...which one is more likely to live on and reproduce-
and in addition to the question why we haven't evolved (i agree with everything thats been said, but im adding more)
because humans have developed technology that allows them to survive more, the survial of the fittest factor has been elimanated, theremore allowing everyone to reproduce, so any benificital mutations become blended with everyone else, making it disappear.

make sense?

[RajginKisaragi]

Why doesn't every animal camoflauge then?

Mostly because of where they live.

[RajginKisaragi]

Re: Incredible Animals

My main question is...how could the theory of evolution still be considered possible? Most of these things that just can't possibly be the result of evolution.

That's like questioning the Bible, don't you think? That's why I don't read it.

[Jam930]

I don't exactly believe in the bible... but a valid point, if you consider the bible the enemy of evolution.

Why aren't dinosaurs in the bible?


All the animals that were around at the creation of mankind were huge. Giant sharks bigger than buses, wooly mammoth, saber tooth tiger, moa, etc.

Why are organisms getting smaller?

[DracIV]

Jam, I can explain that.

At the time of the dinosaurs, the CO2 content of the world was nearly triple what it is now. The world was much warmer and the plants literally exploded with growth (the higher the CO2 content the faster a plant grows). The massive dinosaurs had more than enough food to eat everywhere. At the time mammals were just a few species of rats who had to fight constantly to protect their underground homes. After many thousands of a years the meteor hit. Dinosaurs were obliterated. After the planet recovered in a century or two, you suddenly had all the food the dinosaurs had and an entire exosystem of niches to fill. There was a mammal explosion. The sea didn't fare so well- most of the giant sharks, etc. ate dinosaurs as a main food source. Say bye to giant fish. Later a type of wolf became a whale to fill the niche left in the sea. However, now most everything was small. The world continued to grow large creatures and continued to face food shortages from global changes (ice age, rewarming, etc) that killed the large ones first. So in the past couple million years or so all of the larger creatures keep starving. There is also one more reason why they starve: the CO2 content in the atmosphere has been steadily decreasing since the creation of the planet and has only begun to rise in recent years. We have a lot less food than we ever had before. Just about every ecosystem has creatures who have become as big as they can without starving (Buffalo, Eagles and Condors, Whales) and those species need to eat huge amounts at once or non-stop.

[Jam930]

Jam, I can explain that.

At the time of the dinosaurs, the CO2 content of the world was nearly triple what it is now. The world was much warmer and the plants literally exploded with growth (the higher the CO2 content the faster a plant grows). The massive dinosaurs had more than enough food to eat everywhere. At the time mammals were just a few species of rats who had to fight constantly to protect their underground homes. After many thousands of a years the meteor hit. Dinosaurs were obliterated. After the planet recovered in a century or two, you suddenly had all the food the dinosaurs had and an entire exosystem of niches to fill. There was a mammal explosion. The sea didn't fare so well- most of the giant sharks, etc. ate dinosaurs as a main food source. Say bye to giant fish. Later a type of wolf became a whale to fill the niche left in the sea. However, now most everything was small. The world continued to grow large creatures and continued to face food shortages from global changes (ice age, rewarming, etc) that killed the large ones first. So in the past couple million years or so all of the larger creatures keep starving. There is also one more reason why they starve: the CO2 content in the atmosphere has been steadily decreasing since the creation of the planet and has only begun to rise in recent years. We have a lot less food than we ever had before. Just about every ecosystem has creatures who have become as big as they can without starving (Buffalo, Eagles and Condors, Whales) and those species need to eat huge amounts at once or non-stop.

Good try, but appears very unlikely in my eyes.

Later a type of wolf became a whale to fill the niche left in the sea.

I hope you're kidding.

[evilbutterfly]

i was wondering if anybody else found that weird...

and, who says the bible must be the enemy of evolution? the bible could actually be used to support evolution. if each "day" in genesis is really a huge period of time, then the bible pretty much sums up what happened. i mean, people back then couldnt understand the numbers million and billion, nor could they come close to comprehending the massive lengths of time needed for evolution. the bible is full of metaphors and figures of speach, so perhaps the day in the bible is alot longer. i believe God created everything, but i dont know how he did it. perhaps evolution was just his way of getting things done.
also, doesnt it say somewhere in the bible that a second for God is like a lifetime for humans? even if it doesnt say that, i've heard preachers say it and 99% of Christians will agree that it is likely. therefore, wouldnt a day for God be a friggin long-ass time for us? hence, God makes the universe in 6 "God days" instead of 6 "man days." besides, a day is measures by Earth's rotation, and there was no Earth when God got started.

and back on subject:

Why doesn't every animal camoflauge then?

because they dont need to be. when there is a need, those who dont fulfill that need die off. thus, not being camo'd hasnt severely hurt every creature's survival enough to make it necessary, and thus not everything is camo'd. make sense now?

Why are organisms getting smaller?

because humans are here now. being smaller makes them less likely to die. just think back on human history. which animals are we always looking to kill? the BIG ones, because they have more meat on them. if u had a lil hunting party, are u gonna go after a pack of squirrels, or an elephant? the elephant could feed your entire village, but the squirrels may not even feed you. also, big things get in our way, so we kill them off. and lastly, big things tend to have fewer offspring, where as smaller things usually have tons of babies. even if we were targetting the smaller animals, they reproduce so fast that it would take a whole lot longer to kill them all.

[DracIV]

No, Jam, I wasn't kidding about the wolf becoming a whale. A species of coastal wolf that ate the fish slowly evolved into a seal-like creature and later (note: this is over a period of two ice ages and everything inbetween- very large) into the whale. Did you know whales have hind legs? There are still vestigal skeleton structures only normally found in wolves in whales.

Oh yeah, and what's so unlikely about starving during massive droughts, insane winters, and massive floods?

[evilbutterfly]

i think my theory is much better. your opinions suck (joke between me and my friend, i'm not serious)

yeah, snakes still have hind legs. some snakes u can still see lil claws on their underside, just barely poking out. well, that's if i remember correctly what i saw on that snake...

[jewpinthethird]

[quote]Bats - There are over 1000 species of bat.
[/quote

And Adam named them all? As well as the millions and millions of insects?

This is for anyone.