General Faith Based Debate Thread Mark II - Page 31

quote Spark

sorry if this doesn't belong here, but if adam and eve were white then how do christians explain black people and such? gene mutation?

That's simply because of the region black people lived in and such over thousands of years affected their skin pigments, like living in colder climates makes you paler, etc.

quote Spark

wouldn't their next child just come out as white again even if their skin went dark? wasn't there a theory revolving around this sort of thing?

I haven't taken biology in a long time, but it was like if an animal used it's neck long enough, their babies neck would be longer, and this was proven wrong.

that's like someone getting a tan, having a baby and the baby has a tan. makes no sense.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm under the assumption pigment in skin is of an evolutionary advantage against the sun. Therefore those with darker skin in sunny climates are more likely to survive versus those with paler skin. Over a long period of time this would naturally balance out. Darwin's theory of evolution.

With my experience in biology the general ignorance was inexplicably pinned on people believing it occurred in a similar way to Spark suggested (rightly) was impossible. The idea that a giraffe stretching his neck would have a longer neck or that someone chopping off a toe now had nine toes in his future children. People seemed to believe it was some sort of life choice or just failed to realise that everything that is, is because everything else didn't survive. But that was just my class.

Sorry for not being a clear. I meant the latter; that students in my class had all sorts of misconceptions about evolution. While I went into the subject fairly fresh as well, I couldn't believe some of the things brought up.

17/18/19?

quote Celes Leonhart

17/18/19?

I don't want to live in this world any more.

Styot

Bloody hell. That explains a lot. I marked exam papers as a job on several occasions, and something like 50 percent of the kids had no idea about what orbits what and even thought that the moon and earth are bigger than the sun.

I was wondering if they were taking the piss, but it would seem not.

They were about 15-ish, I think.

Meanwhile, I assure you I knew the entire solar system by about the third year of primary school. They had a chart of planets on the wall.

WakeCraterWind

Really? That sounds highly unlikely.

Why do I say this?

Because the only genes that would matter to the next generation are those in the sperm and eggs.

I'm not sure about the sperm, but all the eggs already exist in an immature state in a woman.

And why would the genes found in the sperm/eggs be turned on or off? You'd think that only the genes related to the function of the sperm/egg would be activated in those cells. I mean, they're not located in the body parts relevant to the function of the other genes, so they shouldn't be activated.

I could be wrong though...

quote

The opposite effect was observed for females—the paternal (but not maternal) granddaughters of women who experienced famine while in the womb (and therefore while their eggs were being formed) lived shorter lives on average

That explains it. As I thought, it can only occur in women if the eggs are still forming while the stimulus is being applied.

I can see this making sense, but given the limitations it's not going to explain much compared to normal evolution.