Mixandburn, plants do evolve! Here\'s a very brief rundown, and here is a more detailed look at a few different plants.

It's interesting that you ask about apples. What we refer to as "natural selection" is a process involving environmental pressure--competition for limited resources, mates, etc. Human activity has also applied selective pressure to species of plants and animals, and the apple is a great example. For over two thousand years, people have harvested apples, and have affected the shape, flavor, and size of apples themselves by selecting which apple seeds to plant and cultivate. Today's apples--juicy, very sweet, and huge--are very different from the apples people grew a thousand years ago, which historical evidence indicates were much smaller and more tart.

Let's say you plant two apple trees--one on either side of a hill. The apples from those two trees will be a little different, because the immediate environments of the two trees are different. Now, let's say you pick the apple you like better, and then plant two seeds from that apple--again, one on either side of the hill. Again, you wait a few years and pick the "better" apple, and again you plant the seeds. After many generations, if you compare the apple you have with an original specimen, they may be quite different, because you influenced which apple trees reproduced.

If you look at the DNA from both a black man and an asian woman, they will both be similar. All humans are the same species, regardless of their external morphology--it's just that in the tens of thousands (probably more) of years that people have lived on earth, different people were exposed to different environmental pressures depending on where they lived. Hence, for example, Norweigans are quite pale (there is little direct sunlight in Norway for much of the year), and natives of the Andes have vascular and respiratory systems capable of dealing with life at very high altitudes.

Mud doesn't really undergo selective pressure, because it doesn't consume anything, doesn't reproduce, and isn't alive. Hence, mud doesn't really undergo selection or evolution.

While I understand and agree with much of your post, I'd like you to clarify this a bit further. Remember, changes have to be genetic. Is it your position that darker skinned people were less capable of surviving in this environment, so their genes kind of died off in this region? I'm confused as to which mechanism created this. (And I'm not trying to make a point).

DNA trails have been tracked around the globe, beginning in southern Africa, migrating through southern Asia across the oceans into Australia and then back into western Asia where they split into all directions including Europe, what is now Russia, Mongolia, the Far East, etc. The Mongolians of what would now be Siberia, crossed the Bering Straits into what is now Alaska with their Reindeer/Caribou (the staple of their diet, shelter, clothing). From there they migrated south. Eskimo and American Indian DNA is very similar to Mongolian. Therefore North and South America are some of the last places to be inhabited.

Lighter pigmented people are found as you move further from the equator since they are exposed to less direct sunlight and the body needs to absorb certain nutrients from the sun such as vitamin D. Just as lighter skinned people exposed to sunlight develop higher levels of pigment to protect them from over-exposure, so have those people closer to the equator.

And this information is passed genetically?

It appears so.

Dorkus, evolution isn't only survival of the fittest - there are other kinds of selection. Someone who looks like Angelina Jolie has an easier time getting laid than someone who looks like Eleanore Roosevelt.

You also have to consider the time it took to reach Buttrumpet's distribution plan.

(I'm just reading about this, so it's right in front of me.)

Our origins in Africa as great apes: 7 million BC.

South-central Asia: by 1 million BC.

Europe: by 500,000 BC.

Australia: 40,000 BC.

Northeastern Europe (Siberia, etc.): by 20,000 BC.

Alaska into Canada: by 12,000 BC.

North America: by 11,000 BC.

South America (present Argentina): by 10,000 BC.

Greenland: by 2,000 BC.

Polynesia (including Hawaii): by 500 AD.


So it's not like this happens overnight.

Reproduction-wise, Angelina Jolie is much more fit than Eleanor Roosevelt.

What this boils down to is the bible is a crock of ****. It's a lie based fairy tale that needs to be exposed for what it is. There is no supreme being that has a
"plan" for your life, wake up. It's a load of horse crap.

ok so your left wondering , well if that's not the truth, then what is? All I can say is open your mind, to the world, to life. Compassion is not the exclusive right of any religion. Compassion is the nature of the universe. It's why we are here. Love and compassion, is not the right of any religion, it's just why we are here and also why we suffer.

Jeremy;
To say compassion is the way of the universe is to contradict your thoughts on God and religion. At least this last post you made. If we are indeed nothing more than the by product of some primordial soup than we are nothing more than brute animals and act and react on nothing more than brute animal instinct. Too act in compassion and mercy, justice and equality indicates we are more than just animals. It would lead to a conclusion we are moral ethical beings. The part of humans that separate us from the animal kingdom. Where did that come from? I already know the old standby "it comes from thousands of years of evolutionary communal coexsistant" answer, but if all we are, and all we have become is merely by chance, where did the sense of right and wrong come from? To this day animals don't get that. One would think if evolution was just like it is preported to be, at least some other animals would have evolved beyond instinct by now and would be operating on a level on par with man. Like on the movie planet of the apes or something.Yes apes do have communities and a sort of family cast system but still they are driven by instinct and not moral values. Thats why chimps are so dangerous as pets. You may think they are your best friend and raise them from the time they are small babies but its a known fact when they grow up they have the potential at any time to turn on you and kill you. Would that chimp know any better and be tried in a court of law? No. Because it is a wild animal driven by instinct and not loyalty or friendship or values or consience. It doesn't understand such things.According to the evolutionary line of thinking, the universe and all that is within is driven by nothing but chance. It was all one big fluke that came out of nowhere and our lives, our families, our values, our hopes, our dreams, our accomplishments all mean nothing. So why care about anything? Why be loyal to your spouse or your kids or other loved oned? Why have loved ones? Why not kill, steal, cheat, extort and do whatever it takes to grab all we can because it all means nothing anyway right? Be a renegade, shirk responsibility, screw the law, screw my community, my neighbor and my country. Afterall, its just me against the world. Nothing else matters. No right. No wrong. A world where everything is relative and subjective to my will and desire? No thank you. That is not any kind of life to lead in my opinion. Life without hope? What a miserable existence. I do not ascribe to the thoughts of the religious zealots out there and by the way neither did Jesus according to history and the bible. Neither do I subscribe to the thoughts or idea's of secular humanists zealots. I don't believe the earth was made six thousand years ago. Why would a master builder who has all time on his side have to short cut such a big plan as earth inhabited by humans that would some day come to know and understand who he is? Proverbs chapter 8 talks about this by the way. I do however believe there is a loving creator we call God for lack of a better name, by which we all were fearfully and wonderfully made. I do believe there is an open invitation to whoever would take it, to know this creator called God that by the way has nothing to do with the religious right wing affiliation. I do believe that mankind posseses a spirit within him or her that goes on after we leave these bodies. I have personally witnessed, experienced and have had first hand interaction with supernatural events that defie the natural progression of things. The evidence of what I have experienced is far more compelling to me than the opinions of those who have not a clue to the reality of God.so I guess the scientifically evolved community of secular humanists can go on all day about the rediculous notion of an intelligent being that placed man on this planet for a purpose beyond their grasps to understand. They can dig in the dirt till doomsday to find old bones and create their own "our way or the highway, we're right your wrong" religion called evolution that excludes any possibility of a devine creator of it all. They can find corrolations between this tree and that bush to bolster their case against God. Still, to this day I would challenge one of them to prove God does not exist. They cannot. My belief in God as creator is big enough to include not only this ancient earth but all the processes that have occured whatever they may be that has got us here to this point in time and my belief system will as well take me beyond this place when I leave this body. Others may do what they will, as for me and my house we will serve this creator of all things. I choose to live my life filled with the faith hope and love that relationship affords. I have come to understand this God encompasses all things; seen and unseen and not just the imaginations of some religious people groups scattered across the land. Like Glenn said early on in this thread "evolution smevolution", I could care less. The fact is, we're all here, now, and moving through fast. Make the best of it. Whatever that might be.