The problem between evolution and faith is only for a overt for a person of faith if you are taking the stance as a person of faith in the literal belief that creation took place 12,000 years ago and no life evolved, as well as the randomness or pure chance of creative phenomena.

The problem between evolution and faith for both the evolutionist and a person of faith who is able to accept that life evolved over billions of years is purely revolving around random selection. Why? Because a person of monotheistic faith can accept that Genesis 1-12, which is prehistoric, is mostly allegorical in truth. But they cannot accept pure randomness of creation, mere chance that life in all of its inexpressible complexity simply happened by series of accidents.

Is there evidence against random selection? Yes, and it comes from a branch of science far broader and more encompassing than the biological sciences, the laws of which permeate every other branch of science, namely astrophysics.

In 1973, astrophysicist Brandon Carter provided to the scientific community the observation that every mathematical constant ever observed had the mathematical measurement precisely necessary for human life to have come into existence. Thisd principle is called in astrophysics "the Anthropic Principle" fromt eh greek "anthropos" which means "human." Any one constant off by the most minute of measurements would have resulted in a universe without human life. This points toward a purposeful universe, thus intelligent design, and apparently cannot coexist with a purely random universe.

i believe in intelligent design. kind of hard to teach a science class because of it though.

Why wouldn't we still have apes?

I do not know about any sludge, but the reason we would still have apes is because not all apes in all locations would have been subject to the same conditions over the course of hundreds of thousands of years that would result in mutations and evolutionary changes. And nonetheless, as long as one can accept evolution but see the flaws of random selection, then evolution really will not cause a problem for an advocate of the theories of intelligent design.

there appears to be hope for some of you.........

I been confused with both on occasion.

My general understanding is that when a species evolves into something else, it doesn't take a step backward and become the parent species again.

didn't that happen in Planet of the Apes?

Nonsense. Just look at some of the coolies posting in here

does your potentially scientific understanding include the possibility that species from different areas undergo changes that other parts of the entire population don't? you know, like darwin's work showed?

could "apes" just be a shorthand for what exactly evolved? astralopithecus (sp?) isn't assumed to be a chimp.

where did the apes come from?

Somehow it just seems appropriate to step in here and say 'Don't feed the monkeys!'

God invented them 6000 years ago.

Although scientists like to pooh-pooh the findings of scientist Rupert Sheldrake who hypothesized morphic resonance (because of the implications of extra-bodily consciousness), there have been observations of same species separated by distance (like living on separate islands and never coming into contact with eachother)evolving certain common and novel behaviors.

But Darwin also observed unique developments by closely-related species in different locals, even separated only by a few islands.

there are a number of questions that i've asked of you that you ignored.

also, that is very moderator-like of you to call me a monkey (and don't try to dodge it, j says "don't feed the animals" after my posts). moderators can't go on thin ice though i guess.

my apologies to the J-man, I did fall off the wagon.....

Yes Pale, direct all commentary to the general thread in here, or suffer the consequences.

2 things.

1. I think you are begging the question about whether humans evolved from apes. My understanding of evolution was that humans and modern apes evolved from a common ancestor species.

2. Genetic adaptation, genetic mutation, even genetic drift do not 'replace' an entire species. Those mechanisms tend to create new species. (If they didn't, there would be only 1 kind of shark, only 1 kind of dog, etc.)