Creationism vs. Evolution

[coolotter88 2]

I believe the creators of south park were mocking you.

[Barbarossa 51]

.

  Edited September 7, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[anik 14]

I am an atheist, and to argue that God is immune to all laws is a fallacy by itself, no?

You ask why I am atheist, I ll tell you. It's time this discussion came.

First of all, I dont think that religion is a business. Back in India where I come from, priests sometimes make loads of money while the rest of the population is starving.

Second, institutional religion creates hatred and division. Come on, muslims are muslims. Shias dont need to attack Sunnis, vice versa, and neither do protestants need to simmer against catholics. What is the meaning of this? God DIDNT WANT HATRED!!!

Third - People dont stick to it. At least theres very few who do. The only people who go even close to following "God's rules" are maybe Buddhists. But Chrisitans? Oh no. Muslims? No way. Hindus? Definitely not. There's war, there's racism, I could go on forever.

Four - Science is beginning to prove the bonds of religion to reality even weaker AND weaker.

Five - Religion was founded at a time when humans knew little about their world, knew nothing about the skies, and space, and the mountains, etc. The whole basis of religion is based on myth. Simple.

Six - Just becasue Im an atheist doesnt mean Im a gothic anarchist who wants death and destruction. I believe in love, peace and unity, true love and understanding, something that transcends all our differences. And we dont need to convert each other and demonize each other for this. I believe in Humanism, and that's why I am an atheist.

Seven - Ah. Religion. Wonderful thing really, I've went to churches, temples, mosques (I took off my shoe outside, yes.), synagoges, stupas, and even Baha'i temples (oh by the way those Bahai are really good folks, I actually pretty much agree with them.) But in the end, I've realized that Humans are no different. And that means we didnt have 20 different gods who created us.

God, Allah, Elohim, Shiva, and so on. If there was just one religion on this planet, it would be more believeable. But no, going back to Five, religions developed at different places with different understanding

Eight and Final - Prove it. They say that you cant disprove religion.

Can you prove it? Can you really prove the Bible? No. Nobody has the original copy hehe. Can you prove God? Of course not. He wont come in front of you. But you can always "become" a prophet by pretending really, and claiming that you have seen God and blah blah blah. Everyone will believe you because they believe in God. Not believing in the truth of what they beilieve is not that believe-able. Can you prove Jesus? Chances are there might have been some guy called Jesus, but I doubt he ever did miracles, or that his mother was a virgin. Sorry, Im being very harsh in my comments, now Ill be nicer.

If God came in front of me right now, i would bow down to him, and give him everything.

But sorry, I dont see him.

Karl Marx once said: "Religion is the opium of the masses"

Not to say that im a communist, I am strongly against that thought, because it is too autocratic for me.

But this is my thought Ill be happy to reply to any questions.

Thank you for letting me speak my mind.

[coolotter88 2]

opiate of the masses but hey by the way, I have a funny joke

who is the leader of the Orange Catholic Church?

why the pulp of course!

[fukuda 351]

Originally posted by: anik I am an atheist, and to argue that God is immune to all laws is a fallacy by itself, no?

quote>

Yeah, it's called a sophism

[patriots_1228 51]

jjune: When i go to London in my US flag shirt, and someone walks up to me and says "O look at me im american, i fear evil communism with its "evil ways"", do you think they are mocking america or destroying communism? I think its obvious they are mocking america.

Same with the south park case. Never take south park seriously, no matter how funny the whole "retarded fish" thing is.

[anik 14]

haha! pulp all right.

No the pope is pretty much a good person.

Better than Bush at least

[Micah 16]

Good person is a relative term.

Edit: One man's terrorist is another man's hero. One man's spiritual leader is another man's persecutor (not specifically the pope; just a general meaning).

[jjune4991 1]

ok, so i guess i got off on the wrong foot. so let me state my beliefs, NOT my arguement.

i am a christian, plain and simple. i am a christian b/c its my personal right to believe what i want. i believe it b/c i think that Jesus is the only way to heaven. you may not think that. that's your human right. but in my life, i have seen that i cannot handle life on my own. and that there is a life after death. and that Jesus died for me so that i can be reunited with God...thats my belief.

i took that south park too seriously, and i am sorry that i did. i saw the hilarity in it, and i thought that it was true. i just thought it was relevant.

i dont discredit evolution, just evolution through different species. thats why i used the south park example. i only believe in interspecies evolution, not one to another to another.

and i know that some of you 'atheist' say that religious people are stupid and there are no true religious people, but i think that you are wrong. the only thing there is is too many hypocrits (spell check please) to "their" religion. there are too many 'christians' who are not christians. they only say that b/c their parents may have brought them up like that, or b/c they go to church once or twice a year. and the catholics and protestant thing is b/c of different beliefs. people bicker over beliefs all the time. no one is perfect (except Jesus ...sorry you guys, i just had to). and the sunni and shi'ites are just worried about who should be in power. those people aren't firm believers in their faith, they just want earthly possessions.

now, i hope i didnt rant on too long. and thank you for letting me express my beliefs.

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

Originally posted by: Micah Good person is a relative term.

quote>

 

There will be some 'good' people in Hell, and some 'bad' people in Heaven. Such is the core of Christianity; forgiveness for those who seek it.

[yoshikoroyimara 5]

Religion has its own home, and so does science. Keep them separate. I like it short.

[Sam 163]

Originally posted by: jjune4991

and i know that some of you 'atheist' say that religious people are stupid and there are no true religious people, but i think that you are wrong.quote>

Perhaps you could wait until we do speak to know what we say rather than putting words into our mouths.You may be surprised.

[jjune4991 1]

i'm sorry sam, i meant to say "you may say...". i forgot to put that there. hmm...whoops.

[patriots_1228 51]

Originally posted by: jjune4991

and i know that some of you 'atheist' say that religious people are stupid and there are no true religious people, but i think that you are wrong. .quote>

 

In my limited experience, people who say that and say "there is no god" are often just too afraid to beleive the idea that one day they will be judged, and that what they do now will determine how they spend the rest of eternity. And that can often turn into attacking religion, from that fear.

However, some people have legit reasons for saying those things, such as they don't beleive its plausible. Of course, that can also be used as an excuse for the beleifs i said above

[JanYpe 17]

In my limited experience, people who say that and say "there is no god" are often just too afraid to beleive the idea that one day they will be judged, and that what they do now will determine how they spend the rest of eternity. And that can often turn into attacking religion, from that fear.quote>

I've always thought of it more as some people needing a fear of eternal reward or retribution before being able to pursue what's right and decent instead of committing crimes. Funny that.

[raja_indy14 8]

In my limited experience, people who say that and say "there is no god" are often just too afraid to beleive the idea that one day they will be judged, and that what they do now will determine how they spend the rest of eternity. And that can often turn into attacking religion, from that fear.quote>

yes, your experience must be pretty limited since most atheists i know, and myself, don't think like that at all.  how can you fear judgement on your soul, if you fundamentally deny the existence of God and all the wierd human rituals/superstitions that surround the worship of said entity.  mostly i don't believe in God because i wasn't brought up to, i was brought up to believe whatever i wanted, and since the idea of believing in some divine entity was never ingrained into me during my early formative years, when i grew older the idea of it seemed absurd.  to an 'outsider' or the unitiated it often seems irrational and eccentric to believe in God.

even if i were to believe in a "God" it wouldn't be anything like the deity that is worshipped in the major or organized religions.  the human rituals and stories which are attached often seem more eccentric than the belief in a divinity itself.

additionally, i certainly don't attack religion.  i firmly believe everyone has a right to worship as they please.  of course the case could be made that teaching religion to small children is indoctrination, but on the other hand the vast majority of theists seem to go about their lives perfectly normally, and are certainly not as a rule stupid, so perhaps it doesn't do too much harm.  especially since fundamentalism seems to exist for only a small minority of theists, and dangerous fundamentalism is certainly not exclusive to religion.

as for the creation myth, i really cannot understand how people - even quite rational people - can believe in something so comprehensively irrational.  if you didn't learn it as a child, and were only made aware of it as a fairly educated adult, you would likely decry it as the rediculous legend of some primitive jungle tribe - certainly not a belief extolled by people living in the most advanced human societies that have ever existed.

there's also the fact that their are countless creation myths and countless 'Gods', who is to say which one is "correct"?

(btw, don't see the above as an 'attack' on religion, just an expression of my complete and utter inability to comprehend it)

[fukuda 351]

Originally posted by: patriots_1228

In my limited experience, people who say that and say "there is no god" are often just too afraid to beleive the idea that one day they will be judged, and that what they do now will determine how they spend the rest of eternity. And that can often turn into attacking religion, from that fear.quote>

Hum, this is quite funny, there are more religions than the christian one, and christianity has a really special feature, it's limited in time. Many other religions belive in eternal cycles of time and reincarnation, from nordic beliefs to hinduism, so gods are created (yes they are given birth by the world, not the inverse thing), live, and die in the final battle within gods or gods and demons/colossus (note that the obsessioon with good and evil is also a christian (and hebrew) feature, demons do not represent the evil in other cultures) where the world is destroyed and everything (also god/s) reborns again, eternally... There's no eternity to live after judgment, unlike christianity, which is focused into living according to faith to get rewarded after death and final judgment.

This causes fear towards death in the christian world, unlikein some other cultures, where this behavior is not very well understood

well, I'm finishing this off-topic here, it's always good to view things from other perspectives, if you're interesting into this, I advise you to read the books from Mircea Eliade (former head of the philosophy faculty at the Sorbonne University)

[Micah 16]

[JDRCRASH 53]

To deny creationism and say that everything is completely logically sensical by human comprehension is naive and foolish. We as humans have limits to our understanding, but are able to have the capacity of morals and be aware of what is evil and good. The fact that it saddens us when a friend, or any human for that matter, is murdered further shows that God along with his spiritual creation DO exist, and that we were given a purpose here on this planet.

The heavens, along with its inhabitants are oblivious and have no perception of timespace, which is likely why we cannot see them or detect their whereabouts. Having faith in a greater source of power is in of itself a miracle; but people must also understand that not every religious organization is truthful.

[iamihop11 19]

First, I'm really impressed by this discussion -- it's so much more civilized than most conversations I've seen about topics as personal and touchy as this.

I think I have an interesting perspective on this issue. My mother is a chemist (science) and my father is a Methodist minister (religion). I've grown up watching my parents live their religious beliefs out, and they brought me up in an amazing church community. On the other side, they have made sure that I get the absolute best education they could find (whether they could afford it or not ). I'm now at a superb university, and I've learned ridiculous amounts from my freshman year. One of these things is looking at ideas like evolution/creationism and God/humanism. I think it's a mistake to assume that most people raised Christian maintain that faith because it's all they know - it's not indoctrination, it's an invitation. I have never felt that I HAD to be Christian just because my parents were. They encouraged me to think and feel for myself; the most powerful advocate for religion has been watching the way that they live.

I think that evolution is quite clearly a real process - in fact, my dad (the minister, remember) also believes in evolution. It isn't exclusive of his faith, in fact for him the process simply ignites even more awe of God's power.

Finally, with this background, I think the best way to describe my current beliefs is to call me an "agnostic, pragmatic humanist." I personally find the actual existence of the Christian God irrelevant. I was never in church because I feared for my soul; I go to church because it provides a community of caring people around whom I feel comfortable. I believe in the Christian way of life - whether God is there to watch what I do or not, I think that the guidelines of love, pacifism, acceptance, charity, and caring that Jesus embodies are the pinnacle of a good lifesyle.

I'm not atheist because I can't prove or disprove the existence of God. I like the idea of something more powerful than myself, because I have no business being the ultimate authority on anything , but it just isn't tangible to me. I'm pragmatic because I'm interested in the practical effects that true Christian belief has on people (I've seen it turn lives around). And I'm a humanist because my actions toward those around me are much more important to me than what happens once I die.

Okay, that was longer than I thought it was going to be, but it helps me to write my thoughts out, even if nobody reads them.

Cheers,

Ihop

[shaggy01ca 3]

anik's post near the top of this page was awesome  -  however i will chime-in in general because i'm not gonna go through 32 pages and see what has or has not been said. - a city journal sure but not this. 

I'll right what's my background - B.A in Philosophy with Christian Theology as a minor from the University of Alberta.  - I've taken science and religion classes, even gone on first year geology field school.

Most important to this is i'm not saying i'm better than anyone else on here. Everyone is free to speak their mind, Creationists in their forms and agnostics, Deist's and atheists.

Gonna give the low-down on Darwin himself and what he thought. - Some Creationists and some Atheists may be supprised!!

Daewin is celebrated as a secular saint and vilified as Satan's agent in the corruption of the human spirit.  BUT he is misquoted in order to support a particular position. The popular view of Darwin is based on a highly selective reading of the sources: 

"Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (Richard Dawkins. Blind Watchmaker, 6.)

He did in his early years believe in a literal interpertation of the Bible.

Darwin wrote a number of correspondences to Asa Gray (1860-61)

I agree with you that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical. I had no intention to write atheistically... With respect to the theological view of the question. This is always painful to me. I am bewildered.  (to Gray 22 May 1860)

I'll finish up with this:

I may state that my judgement often fluctuates. In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I  think that as i grow older, but not always, that an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind. (1879)

find more here:

http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/

http://www.darwin-online.org.uk/

What am i? - i'm an Evolutionary Creationist - i believe that God created the Universe, not in the 7 literal days, but over eons. That evolution is the process which God has used to create us. I still am a Christian, I still believe in Jesus. But for me the Books of Genesis are not meant to be taken literally. They tell us not where we came from but who we are as a species and why all that is around is is special.

I'm not picking and chooseing what to believe or not, but Genesis was written at a time when the earth was still believed to be flat, - you could climb a tree and see the edge of the earth because they didn't travel far.

Let's put this another way - had God explained to the Jewish authors of the day the theory of relativity.. they would have said HUH?? the same way you explain how a baby is made to a child of 3-5 years old to say a teenager.  You come down to their level.

Cheers all!

[raja_indy14 8]

@ JDRCrash - i didn't say that everything was necessarily comprehensible to humans, much of it isn't.  much of it has to be broken down into numbers and equations before humans can really comprehend it - and even then only a few of us.  just because things are incomprehensible doesn't mean that we need a divine agency to create, run, and explain the universe.

and how are emotions proof of the existence of God?  not all people are necessarily saddened by death, and what is the source of this sadness?  could it be the result of hormones and brain chemistry?  why is it proof of a soul?  is it the selfish sadness of being removed from one you love?  is it true empathy?

why would a christian be sad anyways, shouldn't one rejoice at the death of a loved one since they're going to heaven to be beside God?

Having faith in a greater source of power is in of itself a miracle quote>

why is having faith in a 'greater source of power' a miracle?  humans are highly irrational creatures, it makes perfect sense that in a world where so much was unknown and unexplainable, where people lived with the ever-present nearness of death and fear, that peope would believe in and pray to a divine being.  an afterlife to assuage our fears of death, a divine spirit to give order and explanation to the universe and the mysterious inner workings of humans themselves, and to comfort us in in times of distress.  no, belief in the divine makes perfect sense in such an environment; the mystery is how modern humans reconcile such superstitions with what modern science has revealed about the universe and human nature.

but people must also understand that not every religious organization is truthful. quote>

ah, and which religious organization is truthful then?  who decides?  which interpretation of God is correct?  how can humans even have a correct interpretation of God? what about non-organized religions? is it truthful simply because it is the one you happen to believe is truthful?

anyways, doesn't the story of God creating the world in seven days seem a little far-fetched?  why would one believe it if they hadn't learned it as a child?  it's as fanciful as all the other creation myths (like the ones about the world being a gigantic turtle floating on the sea, or that the whole world was made on the back of a trout).  ID too, seems doubtful, why is an intelligent agent necessary?  teaching ID in school is something that i think cannot be allowed to happen, it's worse enough if they got it from their parents, but for children to be indoctrinated by the state into believing such a thing is heinous, imo.

EDIT - 

I was never in church because I feared for my soul; I go to church because it provides a community of caring people around whom I feel comfortable. I believe in the Christian way of life - whether God is there to watch what I do or not, I think that the guidelines of love, pacifism, acceptance, charity, and caring that Jesus embodies are the pinnacle of a good lifesyle. quote>

precisely why i am not against religion per se.  i think there are a lot of healthy things that religion as a social institution provides, from community-feeling/unity, to moral guides - aside from belief in God.  nor, as you say, can you discount its effect (both negative and positive) on people who truly do believe.

(btw, sorry if this all sounds a little antagonistic, it's not meant to be, again i'm merely expressing my inability to comprehend these issues "from the other side", as it were)

[confused04 14]

posted by jjune4991

i dont discredit evolution, just evolution through different species. thats why i used the south park example. i only believe in interspecies evolution, not one to another to another. quote>

I'm just trying to figure out exactly what this sentence means cause to me, it makes no sense. Like, I'm trying to even come up with scenarios that make sense, but I can't.  Are you saying  "interspecies evolution" is the adaptation of lets say... the snow leopard into another form, but its still a "snow leopard", which even then makes no sense because if a snow leopard continues to change, it in fact is no longer a snow leopard, it'll become a new species. If you just meant adaptation (a species changing slightly just to fit into an environment and  dealing with just small amount of change, fine). Really to be fair, our definition of species is rather arbitrary. Some "species" can interbreed and still produce fertile offspring and we only designate a species as such from our brief human observation. At what point is an adaptation to a stimulus lead to a new species. Thats why we've never "seen" a "species" evolve directly into another "species". We defined a species pretty broadly. Some would argue that some dog breeds are new "species" as many of these dogs cannot breed with others due to physical limitations (i.e. Great Dane and tiny tiny dogs). Because we lack coherent boundaries of species, we will unlikely see a species such as D. mendotae directly morph into another species. Is it when cyclic parthenogenesis delays by one month? The morphological changes in the tail? Is it only when the species lack the ability to breed or have viable offspring (say that to female tigons and ligers). Anyway...  species evolution acts more on a spectrum than a non-continuous stepwise function. We only label a species for clarity reasons. Some people would say "oh that tiger isn't evolving, its only adapting to eat grass" while others say "a fundamental change in diet is good enough to declare it another species of tiger". Thats the problem, because biology relies on human definitions, we can always argue that our human definitions are insufficient and discount evolution, which it shouldn't. In all reality, any change in allele frequency is evolution, whether it be genetic drift or natural selection. So really, a species of cat v 1.0 today is really a species of cat v. 1.01 in the next generation, but we don't and can't label species in that matter because we are reluctant to define what a cat 2.0 is or if it should even be called a cat.

[patriots_1228 51]

Micah....Unfortuantly, I can't watch it backwards, which i think would make it 10x better.

[jjune4991 1]

Confused: i dont think that species A made species B. i think species A1 (yea, its that important ) evolved into species A2. and plus, if i try and explain what i believe, people start saying, "wait...what?" and then i just get confused. it happens.

[confused04 14]

Whats the difference between A1 and A2 versus A and B, it just seems as though you're substituting labels... and when does A1 become A2? Evolution never theorizes that a species of bird turns into bats.... if thats what you're getting at. I presume you're not so why can't a common ancestor of apes and humans evolve into what we see today. Cant you say that "Common Ancester A" evolved into "Humans" as in "A1 into A2". Sorry, I'm just a biologist and i'm struggling to understand you're point of view so that I can effectively discuss it.

[raja_indy14 8]

Confused: i dont think that species A made species B. i think species A1 (yea, its that important ) evolved into species A2. and plus, if i try and explain what i believe, people start saying, "wait...what?" and then i just get confused. it happens. quote>

but if you accept that a species can change from v1.0 to v2.0, wouldn't it make sense that over millions of years it could change into something completely different? why would the change necessarily limit itself to the "initial boundaries"? and would you mean that all the different cats (feral and domestic) are the same "species" and we can see that there is variation and thus change, or do you mean that say a tiger is a seperate species and small changes may occur over time but it still remains a tiger?

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: patriots_1228In my limited experience, people who say that and say "there is no god" are often just too afraid to beleive the idea that one day they will be judged, and that what they do now will determine how they spend the rest of eternity. And that can often turn into attacking religion, from that fear.quote>

Well, the counter argument would be:

People who say that and say "there is a god" are often just too afraid to believe the idea that there is no higher power they can appeal to, and that what they do now ultimately in the greater scheme of things means absolutely nothing. And that can often turn into clinging to religion, from that fear.

And both of those can simultaneously be true. I don't doubt that there are atheists and theists alike who take the side they do because the implications of the other side's views scare them.

Thing is, it's unfair to just paint everyone on either side with that same brush. Not everyone's actions are out of fear. Some are out of logic. Some are out of tradition ("my father was a Christian and I was raised a Christian, so I'm a Christian" type reasons). Some are out of having been fooled into believing things about the other side that aren't true.

Originally posted by: Micah ID is the belief that God, whether he used "creation" or evolution, made the Earth from what it was until what it is today. Creationism and evolution are simply tools that God used, according to ID.quote>

Oh, Wikipedia.......

Direct quote:

certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

Anyways, point being, most of the key proponents of "Intelligent Design" are creationists who shun the idea of evolution, not people who compromise and say "okay, God caused evolution".

It is not science, the scientific community rejects the idea. It's intent is to take creationism and rephrase it to make it sound like science so that those people can poke their tentacles into science classrooms and get their theological propaganda taught as if it were the same type of thing as evolution, which it most certainly is not.

Seriously, if you take bullcrap, wrap it up in shiny colorful paper, put ribbon on it, and send it to someone with love... it's still bullcrap. But now it looks really nice and more gullible people may buy it. And that's really all Intelligent Design boils down to: a Trojan Horse tactic to sneak creationism into scientific discussions, where it can then undermine the real science.

Now, that's not to say that Intelligent Design is completely worthless- it does point out gaps in our knowledge, among other things. The problem, really, is its intent. Were it proposed by a philosopher or a secular thinker who finds fault with evolution in order to provide an alternate path of understanding, I'd be a lot more tolerant of it. But it was proposed by Christians for no other reason than to attack science and forward their agenda. And that just doesn't sit right with me. It's not used as real logic, it's used as a (there's that word again) sophism.

Okay kiddies, bath time! Be sure to scrub your brains real good! And don't forget to use holy water!

[Boggy1 45]

Heads up. I was reading a few weeks old New Scientist, and discovered a very interesting article. Direct proof of evolution?

Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab

A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers' eyes. It's the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait.

And because the species in question is a bacterium, scientists have been able to replay history to show how this evolutionary novelty grew from the accumulation of unpredictable, chance events.

Twenty years ago, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski of Michigan State University in East Lansing, US, took a single Escherichia coli bacterium and used its descendants to found 12 laboratory populations.

The 12 have been growing ever since, gradually accumulating mutations and evolving for more than 44,000 generations, while Lenski watches what happens.

Profound change

Mostly, the patterns Lenski saw were similar in each separate population. All 12 evolved larger cells, for example, as well as faster growth rates on the glucose they were fed, and lower peak population densities.

But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations – the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use.

Indeed, the inability to use citrate is one of the traits by which bacteriologists distinguish E. coli from other species. The citrate-using mutants increased in population size and diversity.

"It's the most profound change we have seen during the experiment. This was clearly something quite different for them, and it's outside what was normally considered the bounds of E. coli as a species, which makes it especially interesting," says Lenski.

Rare mutation?

By this time, Lenski calculated, enough bacterial cells had lived and died that all simple mutations must already have occurred several times over.

That meant the "citrate-plus" trait must have been something special – either it was a single mutation of an unusually improbable sort, a rare chromosome inversion, say, or else gaining the ability to use citrate required the accumulation of several mutations in sequence.

To find out which, Lenski turned to his freezer, where he had saved samples of each population every 500 generations. These allowed him to replay history from any starting point he chose, by reviving the bacteria and letting evolution "replay" again.

Would the same population evolve Cit+ again, he wondered, or would any of the 12 be equally likely to hit the jackpot?

Evidence of evolution

The replays showed that even when he looked at trillions of cells, only the original population re-evolved Cit+ – and only when he started the replay from generation 20,000 or greater. Something, he concluded, must have happened around generation 20,000 that laid the groundwork for Cit+ to later evolve.

Lenski and his colleagues are now working to identify just what that earlier change was, and how it made the Cit+ mutation possible more than 10,000 generations later.

In the meantime, the experiment stands as proof that evolution does not always lead to the best possible outcome. Instead, a chance event can sometimes open evolutionary doors for one population that remain forever closed to other populations with different histories.

Lenski's experiment is also yet another poke in the eye for anti-evolutionists, notes Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. "The thing I like most is it says you can get these complex traits evolving by a combination of unlikely events," he says. "That's just what creationists say can't happen."quote>

To summerize: 12 colonies of bacteria mutated loads over time by mutation, and then one colony suddenly evolved with a brand new and very useful trait, which increased it's population and diversity. This major mutation either happened by chance or the previous mutations all built up to it - entirely disproving the idea that useful genetic mutations take an infinite time to happen, or that complex and sudden mutations can't happen. They repeated the experiment using older samples of the bacteria, and the genetic 'evolution' happened again; but only in that one colony of bacteria. Now they are trying to figure out why.

Pretty cool, huh?

[Duke87 1,070]

That is pretty cool.