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  • I am impressed. Well done!

  • @keliangarcia he's not a dog! :\

  • Richard Dawkins has gone off the rails:

    search for Richard Dawkins and male privilege on Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog.

    Participating in flaming a woman because she dares to say 'don't objectify me at a conference'? Poorly done, Dawkins.

  • @8yankee So basically a man asked a woman if she wanted coffee? OH NO SOMEBODY CALL THE POLICE! All she has to do is politely refuse. He has every right to ask her that. If she feels "threated" by that question then that's something she has to deal with.

  • @DanielJGC I most indubitably agree.

  • @8yankee i can call myself 8yankee and blog that i fuck children, duznt mean you fuck children does it, altho quite likely

  • Comment removed

  • Dammit! He's one of the greatest men to be living and to have lived in our history as a species, considering what he's doing for the propagation of intelligence and reasoning in man kind. Pffff, another historical genious in his own right.

  • @overether darwins pitbull

  • co za asy....

  • Beautiful creatures.

  • @prototypo dude what you just said made no sense what so ever. You may want to rephrase that

  • @prototypo Evolution is not outdated in the scientific community (you know, the people that work to understand the universe), and as for your statement that your belief is the only logical one, consider what hard, non refutable evidence you have for it. Cite this evidence if you intend to debate me if not don't bother replying as i'll have plenty of evidence supporting evolution to throw at you. And if your reply is to deny the evidence...well then thats just purposeful ignorance.

  • @prototypo ?

  • i like turtles.

  • I think the turtles look kinda cute...

  • CAPS LOCK MAKES IT TRUE!

  • I WONDER WHY SPIDERS HAVE NOT EVOLVED? THEY CAME ON THE SCEEN AROUND 400MILLION YEARS AGO AND EVOLUTION HAS NOT CHANGED THEM. OR TURTLES /TORTOISES THEY HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR AROUND 250MILLION YEARS AND EVOLUTION HAS NOT CHANGED THEM EITHER. OK! SOME TORTOISES HAVE SLIGHTLY VARIED SHELLS.BUT AFTER A QUARTER OF A BILLION YEARS WHY HAS IT NOT CHANGED/EVOLVED?

  • @british123able

    Go to wikipedia and search for "evolution of spiders".

  • @british123able

    If it is well suited for it's environment, and the environment doesn't change much over a long period of time, the species will not change that dramatically.

    If, however the environment has drastic changes, the species will likely change over time as well because the less suitable organisms would be more likely to die (removing them from the gene pool).

    Each example you gave did evolve. The changes weren't too drastic however, so they still have the same basic features.

  • @british123able They did evolve, dont come on here and ask other people to do research for you, thats just lazy. Read a fucking book.

  • @ThePyramis i want to punch you forever

  • @british123able well worded.

    

  • @british123able 'Cause tortoises, turtles and terrapins are already perfect! I love those animals :)

  • @FarfettilLejl so true just so so sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­ooooooooooo true

  • @british123able as far as i know, spiders evolved from chericelata in the past 400m years, dont know much about turtles though. Anyways, interesting question, surely will look it up :)

  • Dawkins really needs to work on his presentation of information. It could use some Sagan-ing.

  • @doombuggy123 LOL YA!!!

  • These tortoises are going to evolve into ninja's.

  • @JONNOG88 lol

  • Why did Richard say "Evolve to suit the environment"? As I understand it evolution does not occur to suit the environment, but those that survive and reproduce will by default be more suited to the environment.

  • @iwalrus11 you right in saying WHY he said that...but in many, many, many university biology courses....there is an invisible line between 'evolve to suit the environment' and 'adapting to a suitable niche'

    The basis that explains both in conjunction: mutations in a gene are what cause changes in an animal (evolution), and whatever the change, as a result of chance....will allow those animals to thrive in a particular environment (niche) that suits them (adaptation).

    I hope I've explained it?

  • It'd be very interesting to see what these species diverge into and whether the decesdant will even resemble their ancestors. To bad I won't be there to see it.

  • @slicingwater haha, "too bad I won't be there to see". Absolutely brilliant line, my friend! Evolution happens on the scales of millions of years. I would seriously find a way to freeze myself in time.....just to see the beautiful works of evolution happen. That would be a dream come true. If only.

  • oh the beauty of evolution!

  • Comment removed

  • @simbee This freak accident is very convenient as well as it is the only explanation. Or you figured some person drove them there?

  • @simbee almost as convenient as god. shut up

  • See the one he did on the iguanas - very similar freak accidents have been recorded happening and being observed. It is convenient, yes. It's also just what you'd expect if you approached it from the angle that they diverged from a common ancestor over time and location.

  • How so?

  • Heros in a half shell...fuck the pope.

  • I doubt differences in environment make that much of a difference. Between islands isn't going to be that big of a change. I bet it's just the fact that they are separated. If you take two individuals and start two isolated populations with them I wouldn't expect them to evolve identically even in identical environments.

    Also the fact that you're starting a new gene pool inbred from just a few individuals probably causes this.

  • Then you do not understand genetics or evolutionary theory.

    There needs to be a selective pressure for large functional genetic changes (evolution) to happen. Although I do agree that within populations there are certain degrees of small changes, but these are often not functional changes.

  • If there were significant environmental differences yes. Changes in individuals aren't deterministic. It is hard to make sweeping changes in a large population without environmental pressures. If you isolate a few individuals however then any change can be significant since all descendent's of those few will be affected.

  • Really interesting things that I heard during a presentation given by a Professor of Biology at my university on the perception of evolution by people who have some kind of spiritual/faith/religous system, and he was mentioning that many are not as critical or backward as many would think, except for of course crazy fundamentalist. I mean, again i have to say I'm catholic and have no problem with evolution, so am i still considered backwards?

  • @michaelsvm no, it is simply that you havent think enough about it.

    I was a catholic, when i learn about the subject i go and read the official dogmas (not just the last one, but the historic of them) . Its just buffonery, the so call "reconciliation" the church did its just a "Oh yes we accept evolution, but this part we dont like it", its not about science, its about keeping the cattle happy.

  • to venavcatrium ....i think its much higher than that

  • KeAlHa, 50% of americans are shallow-thinking, brain-washed idiots then.

  • LOL

    Devastatingly accurate and hostile.

  • i value both faith/spirituality as well as science, and really all this bashing on creationists is just ridiculous, of course creationists are idiots and really they are a bunch of loonies but geeze we need to move past them, really thats an intra-christian debate, with creationists just being the loonies, I mean fundamentalists have been around for only over a little more than 100 years, and yet the picture gets framed as if they are the dominant norm.

  • @michaelsvm

    50% of americans dont believe in evolution, so its hardly a loonie minority

  • sadly this is true. however the numbers are declining as the disease of ignorance and religion is dying away slowly.

  • wow... that is certainly disheartening if that is indeed this case, but where does this information come from?

  • michaelsvm, that comes from polls, surveys taken of the public. I'm in England so I don't know.

    But I've had several Americans tell me that teachers in "bible belt" areas don't bother teaching evolution theory anymore in high schools because they get so many arguments!

  • @KeAlHa

    well, the percentage for people that used to believe that the earth was the center of the universe was much higher. your argument is irrelevant.

  • the amount of people that believe or disbelieve in something has no bearing whatsoever on wether it is true or not.

  • Thats just america, there are worse countries in the world. You dont have to be a fundamentalist to disbelieve in evolution in some parts of the world. A fundamentalist standard in some contries is to blow yourself up to prove the world is flat. Fortunately their ignorance has caught up with them and now we bombard them and pretend they have WMDs.

  • I agree to a point. It's time to quit giving them and their loony creationist ideas any consideration. It's time to move forward without them. Ignore their comments. They are hoping for a response. I'm guilty of doing it but will cease to do so in the future.

  • "It's time to move forward without them. Ignore their comments"

    Have you noticed the 'spam' button? It's for comments which have no bearing on the issue, such as creationists rambling about religion in a science thread.

  • "Crawls out a little bit further".... that doesn't sound logical or scientific at all. At each attempt it is met with death ..... this is contrary to the supposed rewards of natural selection. There is no reward for jumping off a cliff trying to fly or leaving an environment you are already adapted to. It would be as if we decided there are less predators in space and grew spacesuits. I guess I could crawl further and further into space and eventually it would happen. Evolution is a "force" ...

  • man u are so ignorant of evolution and natural selection somebody murder this rant with some facts please for his sake

  • obergsson, let's see if you can understand better with this: a fish that had some way of lasting in air, much longer out of water than his fellows, would be the only survivor after they were all washed up on a mudflat; he would get to pass on this gene.

    Before you try to criticise evolution Theory any further, spend a few years studying it. You can hardly expect YT users to educate you completely.

  • Excellent video. Explains shell shape differences. I can cope with this (microevolution). Still not convinced by macroevolution though.

  • Spudthecat1,

    There's no fundamental differences between "microevolution" and "macroevolution"

    They refer to the same processes over different time scales.

  • Then research further and you shall be.

  • I wonder why religious people are so prone to enjoy rules and lack of liberty on the society......Let's be free and forget about "Why we are here in this planet?" We are just ordinary animals with no special reason to debate this.....We DO need to debate who people can stop starving, who ladies can get freedom of behavior and thinking, who we can cultivate a better planet for US, not for God.....

  • amen

  • If there would be perfection, god may exist. But as long as diseases and natural disasters exist, I;m afraid your diabolic tyrant is as real as the leprechauns an their pot of gold.

  • Wow, these videos have such AMAZING quality.

  • Think of the absolute truth to the origins of life as being locked inside a box. The keyhole is round and creationism is a square peg. No matter how much you try to twist and force it into the keyhole it never fits inside.

    It doesn't matter how many shapes you add onto creationism to try and get it to fit, it was, is and will always be a square peg trying to fit a round hole.

    If people never open their minds to try and adapt the body of this rigid, unchanging peg (religion) it will NEVER fit.

  • Exactly.

    And what's more annoying is when lighthearted atheists say:

    "Well, it does no harm"

    Really? That's gotta be the most inaccurate, idiotic comment on Religion ever.

    Religion is the biggest sole causer of death in the entire history of man. Because it offers an umpromisable gift and there are many varients thanks to the myths of egypt being hijacked and reshaped to fit cultures.

  • So we have fucking idiots bombing each other and us because they think their "god" wants them to.

    When you think about it's fucking absurd. Religion is poision and anybody who basis their life on it or gives it any respect is a fucking cretin.

  • Yes and we should respect their "beliefs"

    I respect evidence supported by research,,,,,

    Not jabbing a finger at old books!

  • rubbish

  • No evidence supporting a theory = no way of disproving the theory.

  • Creative evolution? I wonder how quickly that sprung out to defend religious beliefs after the uprisings of new evidence to support evolution. This sounds so defensive, and quite frankly, like rubbish. There is no evidence for "creative evolution", and so how can one conclude a name for it? As for the more positive thinkers that believe in elaborating evidence based upon evolution, feel no need to disprove a theory that cannot be matched against it.

  • And check out the RDFTV podcast too! Its all free, I downloaded all of them! (to all the sensible ppl here)

  • There is evolution of species .. but that does not explain the appearance of new species. The fossil record does not support this theory. The world is more mystical than meets the material eye ..

    If species were perfectly adapted to their environment .. they would never have left the sea .. The oceans are full of life that have not evolved further for millions of years ...

    I am not discounting science .... science itself proves spirit, soul and God as it is a power beyond nature.

  • A species is defined as something that can produce fertile offspring with its own species. If evolution hasn't formed new speices then we should be able to reproduce with literaly anything even an ameba. Also new species don't just appear, evolution is on going not linear. If you understand evolution fully and not just have half the picture then you will be able to see the mistakes in your comment.

  • "A species is defined as something that can produce fertile offspring with its own species"

    This is a working definition, but not the motivation behind the concept of species. This concept is about grouping speciments that have a certain degree of similarity. The fertile offspring criteria can't be used with fossiles, for instance.

  • it would have been enormously advantageous for the first organism to leave the sea. No predators, abundance of food, essentially perfect freedom.

    and you speak of "leaving the sea" as if an organism was bored one day and decided to check what was on land. "leaving the sea" happened over excruciatingly long periods of times, and it was met with failure and success.

  • It is perfectly adapted to the sea ... why would it attempt to enter an environment that is toxic .. that is sure death. That is like us wishing to enter space .... and just as likely without an intelligence that can build a spacesuit ....The same intelligence drives evolution ... it's called God ....

  • well at least u believe evolution lol. i understand u think god drives it, thats cool. but u just have the timescales wrong. it wouldn't have been toxic, bcuz then the organism wouldntve been able to go on land!

    look at the mudskipper. its an amphibious fish. thats how it wouldve started. the first animal to go on land wouldve been an amphibian; still dependent almost entirely on water. then over millions of years it wouldve lost that dependency.

  • Oh yeah ... I believe in evolution ... but creative evolution ... look up henri bergson and telhaird des chardin ... and more recently "morphogenetic fields" described by Sheldrake.

    Of course there are transitional species between sea and land ... the challenge is why? ... because creative evolution demands the appearance of a conscious being as the ultimate outcome of that long journey.

  • There is no "attempt" to enter another environment. But by some mutation, one of your water beings is able to crawl out a bit further, were no enemies are. This gives it a higher chance of survival, more offsprings. Other mutations of the offspring follow that lead back to the water or further up unto the shore. For a conscious being, not land-life would have been necessary, a giant intelligent squid would have been nice too, including a squid on the cross maybe...

  • I recommend watching Potholer54's videos about evolution if you don't understand that appearances of new species happens all the time. Including humans from great apes.

  • Evolution does NOT create perfection or perfect adaptation. Natural selection works on existing and available biological material. Also, science does not proof the existence of your God.

  • Awesome vid...

  • David Attenborough style :)

  • Great video again! I cant wait to watch another video by RDF TV.

    - Greetings from Turkey. (Our government can ban your site, but intelligence is beyond governments.)

  • Isn't Turkey a secular country? Weird the goverment would ban a secular site on the web...

  • Turkey is the only industrialized nation in which a smaller percent of the population accepts evolution than America.

  • Shocking, but isn't Turkey a secular country, or was a secular country?

  • Officially, but think of all the schools that taught creationism alongside (or even instead of) evolution in America until recent years.

  • That's hella tight

  • I wish I had something profound to say in response to this video. Dawkins explains everything so perfectly that there is little left to say. What a perfect example of evolution the Galapagos Islands is - first for Darwin to bake the cake and now Dawkins to put the icing on it.

  • The reason Dr Dawkins understand the evolution of tortoises, thoughts created in his brain, is because he has developed an immunity to Faith-psychosis by feeding his brain with various information using skepticism as a colander

    People infected with Faith-psychosis will always have the "god did it" neurological anomaly disrupting scientific inquiry

    This would be as if Dr Dawkins ingest Peyotl before studying evolution of tortoises

    Only the mentally healthy, aka atheist, will understand science

  • I suppose Ken Miller, Mary Schweitzer, Francis Collins, and Robert Bakker will never understand science, then?

  • Leehofooks

    If one believes in resurrecting zombies that save with blood, Prophets given a tour of heaven in a flying horse you are simply suffering from a delusions accepting disorder not much different that schizophrenia or status epilepticus, common on those who accept the retarded delusions of religious beliefs as fact

    ALL are creations of malfunctioning brains REGARDLESS of intelligence. The VATICAN has "scientists" & yet to them resurrecting Zombies is a reality as is for Collins et al

  • I agree with you on creationists, just not on Christians and religious people (I'm not Christian, or religious, by the way.) There are many people who hold religious faith but understand that it is simply a personal belief of theirs. You can criticize it all you want, but can you really say that the people I named will never understand science?

  • Leehofooks

    ALL Religious faith accept imaginary friends, irrational deluded concepts, as if they were REALITY, just like in schizophrenia,TL Epilepsy, shizotypy etc

    The personal belief of a SCHIZOPHRENIA sufferer does NOT impede them from understanding science, but science perceive that way will Go nowhere

    Newton was a christ-psychotic.Can you imagine How FAR science would have gone if he did not BELIEVE resurrected saviors & other delusions were true?

    The BRAIN creates God This is my point

  • How many of those turtles died in the sea during the aeons of time for one that could reach another island. Evolution isn't nice, but it is!

  • you should see the one about the birds...

  • Awesome video, except RD's chicken legs. Think maybe he should wear pants when on Camera.

  • Lol, the RDF for Reason and Science :D Rub it in ! :D

  • BUTT, That thar turtle was wished into bein' I won't go to hell... I won't go to hell... I won't go to hell...

  • Great video !!

  • I love RDF TV! Josh & Richard, keep up the good work.

  • The universe is so massive and so imposing that humans are arrogant to think it has been created for us or that any god would have a human form or human attributes. That does not, however, rule out the possibility that there is not some sort of greater reality that we are all a part of. Look at quantum mechanics and superstring theory to get an idea of how positively strange and wonderful our universe really is. If you want to call it god, so be it.

  • Oh getting into the concept of the multiverse I see. Your one smart cookie :) we need more people who know this stuff and care to learn about in this world.

  • can be said about being THEIST......bc it would also seem to take a great degree of mental stregth in order not to be a BLIND believer, but rather a person of faith who still thinks ctitically. I forgot to mention that McCabe's "Faith Within Reason" is also on my reading list.

  • i'm reading "the god delusion right now" and am about to read Francis Collins after that, and I dunno, for a while i was walking the line of atheism, and just didnt care for it too much.... It would seem that the bible and christianity is what atheism is "tested" against, but spirtiuailty is prob far mor important. Sure the bible may have inconsistencies and contradictions but that doesn't take away from its allegorical value...it does take some real strength to be an atheist, but MAYBE the same

  • Atheism doesn't have to be a belief that no gods exist.

    My take on it is that someone is an atheist until something moves you to be otherwise. It's a neutral state. A state of ZERO belief. Exactly the same as a baby, or a rock, possesses.

    Gods or a god may exist. It's just that nothing you've seen so far has led you to believe otherwise.

    That is atheism for me.

  • Mmmn, this assumption that religious belief is the default state leads to the labelling of people as atheists in much the same way that regular drinkers of alcohol label non-drinkers at tee-total - as though it requires some effort to not drink alcohol and is thus deserving of a 'special' name.

    Why is it that we don't have a name for people who aren't parachutists; who aren't stamp collectors; who aren't swimmers; etc.. ?

  • Spirituality doesn't have anything to do with religion. Religion has kidnapped it for such a long time that everybody thinks that they go hand in hand. Never heard of Atheist spirituality? Check for André Comte-Sponville, contemporary French philosopher. You don't have to believe in fairies for spirituality.

  • This is fantastic. I think if people care to understand the beauty of this world, they will watch and listen and if not, they can just as well "fuck off".

  • I love your style.

  • I hope you make it to Kurzweil's "Bridge 2" of life extension... it would be very nice having you around for another 500+ years...

  • it woulld seem, judging by some of the comments here, that CREATIONISM is the crux of believers, and that by disproving CREATIONISM that belief in the "Transcendent" is worthless, why does ths seem so?

  • because, apparently, most people don't like to think.

  • yeah creationism is a fail...if everything was created at the same time then nothing would of ever changed, and dinosaur fossils would be in bedrock with other human lifeforms, but fact is dinosaur fossils have never once occured in the same bedrock with humans...I bet every asshole creationist is digging around to find one...just one proof of evidence...I cannot believe they are so stubborn about trying to prove shit that continually runs false everytime they try

  • well, breeding is a form of evolution, and numerous plants and animals have been bread for thousands of years, of course - this isn't via the Natural Selection method Darwin proposed.

  • Thank you for this new video... I can't wait for the next.

  • We need more of these documentaries, Thank you, I support Dawkins.

  • Richard Dawkins I love you but please put some pants on =D

  • Psht...

    I say he keeps them off ;P

  • Even though you may never read this: Thank you for all you do, Mr. Dawkins.

  • This is how you make an evolution denier shut up.. Even if you deny that the fossil records show transitional forms. Even if you dont believe that a species will split into two species.. You cannot deny for one second that what the fossil record proves is that life gets simpler the further back you go. Life is proven by the evidence to change and get more complicated over time.. Think about that... That is your proof of evolution hovind you "Willingly ignorant "prat.

  • Richard, message me. I wanna travel with you.

  • I love these videos

  • This was a great series of informational and inspiering videos. I wonder what's comming next.

  • he looks really pathetic in this video.

  • The unplugging human race from religious dogmatic thinking takes a toll on human body both physically and psychologically, and yet Dr. Dawkins takes it all very well. Sometimes I wonder why bother, Dr. Dawkins, let them think whatever they want to believe? However, he cares about what he does because he is a true scientist and he wants to be real. I am proud of his efforts regardless how he may look like.

  • i was talking about his style not body or psychology. sorry, perhaps i could have worded it better...

  • he's trying to be the next Attenborough ?

  • People and dinosaurs lived together, Jesus put a saddle on a T-Rex on made it eat Roman babies. In fact Jesus was a raptor himself and lived off babies. But he was later intelligently designed into an eagle that continues to eat non Christen colored babies and river salmon to this day. Amen Eagle Jesus deliver your swift judgment with your sharp holy righteous talons. XD

  • BEST, flawless scientific theory, EVER!!!

  • Ha ha ha, thank you *takes a bow*

  • I have a christian friend who believes in evolution, and I know a lot more out there do.

    It is definitely real. She feels god lets it happen, so the animals can become happier in their environment.

  • WTF? Evolution is a struggle against enviroments and other animals. It is all about killing to survive or escaping to survive. Nothing happy about one being eaten or one starving. Your "friend's" God is just a asshole that loves watching suffring and death.

  • I was like that too one day.

    She is on the right way, if she keeps thinking she will come to the conclusion that there is no omnipotent being.

  • Comment removed

  • i had a zoology professor once who thought and taught that evolution was reality. yet, he also believed in god. he said that's how god created things b/c it was cooler to create that way.

    he was nice guy...

  • Yeah I remember my path to enlightenment, first I was a christen, then when I started to educate myself I learned about evolution and believed it was a process guided by god, then I learned all the inconsistencies in the bible and became agnostic, then I soon learned I couldn't keep up the belief in a pointless faith. it's been 8 years now I've been an atheist, I'm 19.

  • Well then you're far smarter than I am. It took me 25 years and I still don't know how to tell my family. That just goes to show you how powerful the delusion can be. Cheers to you though. :)

  • It's not easy, it still isn't really. I don't know how to tell the people around me for fear of being shunned like you. And.... there's still a human need for spirituality but also the learned resistance to be spiritual. At times it feels lonely to know there's nothing to pray to. atheism may be the right path, but it's not truly human and it's not always kind. It takes a level of mental strength not many are willing to bare. But I can't go back to god, I know too much now. I must go on.

  • The bible is full of shit, but that doesn't mean that no gods exist.

  • This is a great description of the journey more of us must take. We can't just back off when the evidence gets "uncomfortable," we must face reality with all of our senses open.

  • Yes, we'll never get anything done with a heads in the sand.

  • Dawkins should write a book about these tortoises:

    "The Greatest Shell on Earth"

  • I was thinking one about shellfish. call it "the shellfish gene"

  • Well - if you're going down that road ...

    "The Cod Delusion"

  • "Unweaving the Rainbowfish"?

  • Evolution is a fact, we all know it to be true, the disillutioned group of uneducated deliqents will always throw a spanner in the works; because there feble minds cant comprehend it.

  • I'm a fish .... I guess I'll just "grow" some legs and lungs so I can live on land .... I'm a lizard ... I guess I'll just grow some wings so I can fly around and get a better view .. it's boring here on land. I'm a human ... I guess I'll just "evolve" a spacesuit so I can fly around in space. I believe in evolution .... but to think it's a non intelligent non directed force is laughable ...

  • you have no idea how evolution works. If you did, you would not have described evolution as working like that. But if it makes you feel better, Evolution can be intelligently driven. Any farmer that you mean is likely an instrument of evolution. Maybe without even making the connection. The farmer will replant seeds that yield more desirable surpluses of a crop and will breed more desirable animals to express certain traits. Go research how corn evolved.

  • Why don't you go research how organisms have acquired traits prior to their utilization ... that's what I'm talking about.

    The leap from sea to land is as gigantic as us going into space. We didn't go into space by relying on chance and random mutations and neither did sea organisms become land animals. Or animals take flight ...

  • Did we get our thumbs so that we could use tools, or to hang from trees? They help with both. You can see fossils of intermediate species, sea creatures that can spend a little time out of the water, land creatures that spend a little time in the ocean. There are animals that glide, others that fly. There are gradual intermediates everywhere, so why is it so unbelievable? Theories are always based on evidence. What evidence are you basing 'conscious evolution' upon? Not incredulity I hope.

  • I suppose birds began as animals that tried to escape from their prey so they started hopping from rock to rock ... eventually they started gliding ... then .. they flew! .... the only problem is while they're learning to do this they are getting slaughtered by their predators. Don't you think they would have given up? .... not exactly survival of the fittest ..

    Oh that's right ... they just have to "grow" some feathers .. change their whole body structure .. then hope like hell it'll work ..

  • Evolution doesn't say birds wanted to fly so they grew wings; it says birds grew a 'wing stub' that wasn't used for flying, which evolved over time into a full wing, which the birds THEN used for flying AFTER they had it.

    (In this example I suppose it would be gliding as there are a few other things a flying bird needs to maintain powered flight.)

  • Survival of the best adapted, not fittest, that is a mistake in the early debates on evolution. There are many reasons to have a small mobility advantage, it is not only to avoid predators, but also to reach more food or a good nesting place. It is all about gradual change, that sometimes, very occasionally, leads to amazing changes. More than one kind of animal flies, birds evolved appropriate feathers. A slaughter can speed up change, as only a few exceptional animals survive to reproduce.