That we are less advanced because so many smart people were killed? Did we actually de-evolve for three hundred years thanks to the Catholic church?
134400
that's an interesting thought, and yes it's fair to say
71631
10,000 American clergy members signed this letter to the same effect.\n\nFor too long, the misperception that science and religion are inevitably in conflict has created unnecessary division and confusion, especially concerning the teaching of evolution. I wanted to let the public know that numerous clergy from most denominations have tremendous respect for evolutionary theory and have embraced it as a core component of human knowledge, fully harmonious with religious faith.\n\nIn the fall of 2004, I worked with clergy throughout Wisconsin to prepare a statement in support of teaching evolution. We were called to action by a series of anti-evolution policies passed by the school board in Grantsburg, WI. The response was overwhelming. In a few weeks, nearly 200 clergy signed the statement, which we sent to the Grantsburg school board on December 16, 2004. Additionally, groups of educators and scientists sent letters to the Grantsburg School Board and to the Superintendent of Schools protesting these policies. In response to all of this attention, as well as the efforts of others, the Grantsburg School Board retracted their policies.\n\nThe outpouring of support from clergy around the country encouraged me to make this a nationwide project. If you want to read more about it or join us in sharing this important  perspective, click here.  Encourage your clergy to consider signing the statement and please feel free to link to these webpages.  And, while the current focus is on Christian clergy, please let me know if you are willing to write and/or host a statement from other religions.\n\n\nSincerely,\n\nMichael Zimmerman\nDean\nCollege of Letters and Sciences\nUniversity of Wisconsin Oshkosh
510940
There would be continues wars as it was when we were barbarians before religion. \nBut it was the way of life back then til we started caring about life. \nBut now instead of killing the weak we try to help the weak.\n\nYou can study how animals are towards each other and that's how we would be now. \nReligion caused use to think more of ourselves, science caused us to take killing to a higher level though. \nThey can kill everything on the planet with one test tube of virus.
422599
This is actually a great question, and entire books have been written on it.  I am not going to try an condense down those books (look for authors like Jared Diamond and Stephen j. Gould) but I will just give you my thoughts.  \n\nFirst, the neandertal were very close to us in intelligence.  There is much debate on how close, but the evidence points towards them being almost as adaptable as us and probably capable of symbolic thought.  This shows lightning can strike twice.\n\nSecond, you say no other animal comes remotely close, but this isn't quite true.  chimps, gorillas, some whales & dolphins, and elephants have been shown to be quite intelligent, capable of learning, communicating, even using tools.  So while I'm not saying they will win in a chess match, they do come at least remotely close to our intelligence.\n\nThird, you really answer your own question, as you say intelligence can and does help us and other species.  If this adaptation is actually useful, then why wouldn't we continue to evolve in that direction?  \n\nMy final point is this:  once we became smart enough to outsmart the natural world, we then had to outsmart each other!  Our anscestors had to be smart enough to not just kill mammoths and cook meat, they had to be smart enough to defend against raids from other tribes, or smart enough to be useful in a tribe full of smart people, in order to stand out to potential mates.  that is a powerful selective pressure on any species, but especially our anscetors.
87637
some of my ancestors were headhunters...they actually took pride in eating they enemies...\nIf there is any validity to evolution then you and I ain't nothin but intelligent decendants of monkey brains.\nHowever,if the holy books & all have the truth & nothin but the truth then we all got black in us,therefore,you raggin on all these white folks for nothin...
574106
Humans didn't evolve. Science itself refutes Darwinism. Science is disproving evolution more every day. There is less evidence for evolution today than there was when Charles Darwin first came up with the theory (hypothesis). There are a lot of scientists that don't believe in evolution, and more are changing their beliefs all the time. Here is a partial list of creation scientists (past and present).\nhttp://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-scientists.html\nWith all the evidence against it I really don't see how any open minded intelligent human being could believe in evolution. With the lack of proof for evolution it takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in creation and intelligent design. There is a lot more evidence for intelligent design than there is for evolution. Evolution isn't mathematically possible. The complexity of life points to Intelligent Design as revealed by such complex structures as:\n\n* Cells and DNA\nIn Darwin's time, scientists thought cells were just blobs of protoplasm. Since that time the advance of science has uncovered ever more powerful evidence that what Christians believe is true on all levels, including the natural world. And that is becoming even clearer today as scientists learn more about what is inside the cell-and especially the structure of DNA.\n\nAccording to cell biologist Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, "The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines."\n\nEven the simplest cells are bristling with high-tech machinery. On the outside, their surfaces are studded with sensors, gates, pumps and identification markers.\n\nInside, cells are jam-packed with power plants, automated workshops and recycling units. Miniature monorails whisk materials from one location to another. No such system could arise in a blind, step-by-step Darwinian process.\n\nThe most advanced, automated modern factory, with its computers and robots all coordinated on a precisely timed schedule, is less complex than the inner workings of a single cell.\n\n"A bacterium is far more complex than any inanimate system known to man. There is not a laboratory in the world which can compete with the biochemical activity of the smallest living organism. One cell is more complicated than the largest computer that man has ever made." - Sir James Gray, from Cambridge University\n\nDNA is like a language in the heart of the cell, a molecular message, a set of instructions telling the cell how to construct proteins-much like the software needed to run a computer. Moreover, the amount of information DNA includes is staggering: A single cell of the human body contains three or four times more information as all 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. As a result, the question of the origin of life must now be redefined as the question of the origin of biological information. Can information arise by natural forces alone? Or does it require an intelligent agent?\n\nDNA is composed of ordinary chemicals (bases, sugars, phosphates that react according to ordinary laws. What makes DNA function as a message is not the chemicals themselves but rather their sequence, their pattern. The chemicals in DNA are grouped into molecules (called nucleotides) that act like letters in a message, and they must be in a particular order if the message is going to be intelligible. If the letters are scrambled, the result is nonsense. So the crucial question is whether the sequence of chemical "letters" arose by natural causes or whether it required an intelligent source. Is it the product of law or design?\n\nSince DNA contains information, the case can be stated even more strongly in terms of information theory, a field of research that investigates the ways information is transmitted. The naturalistic scientist has only
643005
Not necessarily.  We do all those things because protohumans were exposed to evolutionary and selective pressures that lead to creative humans capable of technological advancement.\n\nIf, and that's a big IF, any of those animals you mentioned which that are rather intelligent get exposed to these same selective pressures over a LONG period of time (it took us 2 million years to figure out fire, so it'll be a while), then sure why not.  But the odds of that happening are very small, but you never know, we'll see in 5 million years what happened...\n\nCheers.
140999
It is thought that man came from ape like ancestors, not quite monkey's.  \n\nIt could take hundreds of thousands of years for macro evolution to occur.  Wait around that long, and i guarantee there will be NEW species.  So it is still happening.\n\nThe fossil record is not complete because fossils are hard to come by, not everything fossilises despite contrary belief.  In fact it's amazing we have as much info as we do.\n\nHow on earth does it take less belief to believe in a god, there is no evidence whatsoever for this!  At least evolution has enough evidence to fill several hundred warehouses, what do you have, testimony.. Yeah right, thanks, i'll keep to evidence, not faith to inform my decisions about the world around me.
101609
yes but we screw it all up - evelutionary caches (ie the aboriginies of austrailia) if left alone would eventually differ enough to become a separte species - for better or worse. but with world travel this is very unlikely to happen.\n\neven moreso with modern medicine we are hampering the natural selection process and genetic inferiority and deformity are not lost (i know this sounds heartless but nature has its own plan) we keep the week and infirm alive and in many cases protected form certain natural demise.\n\ndo I believe evelution is at work... yes but in humans its sort of devolution :S\n(sorry went on a rant :P)
123097
1) We ARE evolving. It's just a process that takes thousands of years to manifest itself. But yes, physically we will look slightly different in several hundred-thousand years, just like cavemen looked different from us.\n\n2) Music and wind can be detected, and measured (like those decibel-measuring tools in some school cafeterias, or wind-speed detectors in weather stations). Can God be measured or detected through science or observation?\n\n3) Love, although it has not been fully explained, is a feeling like many others, and goes back to our chemical and electric reactions between various neurons and neurotransmitters in our brain. Nothing too mysterious, really, just a way to get us to reproduce ;)\n\nThanks for asking our opinion politely, and not being a prick yourself by being overly preachy :)\n\nWhile I myself don't believe in God, I don't care what everyone else believes. If believing in God truly makes you a better person, and gives you peace of mind, then that's the best thing for you :) Just don't push it on me, and I'm A-OK with your beliefs.
593533
Not sure if there will be a next big one...religions as a whole are dying as we become a more enlightened and scientific species...every generation produces more rational thinkers and skeptics who recognize that there is no true religion and that religion has served it's purpose (i.e. run it's course) for humanity...with a little luck, a few millennia from now we'll be all the way there...
30763
We didn't evolve from anything.  God made us humans, and he made the monkeys... monkeys.
400803
Ya so whats your point? \nHumans the products of power, no humans are the end result of million of years of evolution.\nPower held the world together I would argue that Power has almost torn the world apart on more then one occasion.\nyes we have a highly developed brain although on any given day just watching those around you would lead you to question the validity of that statement.
188137
FYI  Answer one is absolute garbage, totally fictitious rubbish.  In fact this answer is a scam answer probably set up by yourself.  It would not be possible to provide this answer in that time so unless the chap has been waiting for someone like you to post this question for ever and just happened to be there when you did in order to post first, then he is you.  How stupid do you think we really are.\n\nAnswers 2 & 4 have it right.  We did not evolve from monkeys and apes, we share a common ancestor.  It would actually have been as equally valid or stupid a question to say, "If monkeys and apes evolved from humans, how come there are still humans.  To believe humans are superior in anything other than their intellect takes the arrogance of religous belief or "faith".
391484
we got alliens more developed than humans
332587
Yep. I totally agree that it is due to a misunderstanding of evolution.\n\nI once was told, as an example of why evolution was faulty, that "you cannot put a typewriter into a closet and open up the door a few days later and expect it to be a computer". I remember explaining the relationship between the computer and typewriter and that the ideas, concepts, etc that the technology did evolve, but that certain elements of the typewriter were carried over to the computer (like the keyboard and how it is styled). Then the person said the statement you mentioned "yes, but we couldn't have evolved from apes because apes are still around" to which I remember replying "so are typewriters and word processors. I still own atleast one besides my computer."
208356
Each step in evolution, even cultural evolution, has to be an improvement over the one before, or it won't last.\n\nI think that the evolution of culture shows that when people cooperate, they all do better.\n\nI think it was Desmond Morris who wrote that the huge amount of learning that human children have to do to live in a culture was made possible by their extremely slow rate of growth before sexual maturity (about 12-18 years), compared to other primates.  And often our culture stretches this out even further, causing a lot of tension between the generations.\n\nIn highly complex cultures like ours, children are often 20 years old or older before they have finished their education and are ready to be fully responsible adults.  In less complex societies, you might see that a child of 12 or 13 has learned enough to become a member of adult society.