re: Rush Limbaugh thinks evolution is a hoax because gorilla never became human

He was being sarcastic btw.

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We're clearly debating at a retard level if you think that Venus is definitive proof that liquid water can't exist outside of Earth and that the whole fricking world doesn't know that Mars didn't/doesn't have liquid water on it.

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wait, this idiot is arguing water in space...

its one of the most abundant molecules in space, seriously you, Tuptiger, need to return to school my man.

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What do you mean, am I serious? My example was obviously over the top but I choose to believe we didn't all evolve from an ape. That's the beauty of being human in that we have the ability to decide for ourselves what we wish to believe and what we don't...ain't it beautiful?

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its not beautiful to live in ignorance of a topic you are asking questions about, then dismissing the answers.

again we didnt evolve from apes, we share a common ancestor with apes and that is undeniable when you understand the evidence supported across multiple disciplines of life and earth sciences.

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What are the odds of evolution occurring? It's happened on a macroscale like on Earth how many times?

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LINK: Although the Cretaceous-Tertiary (or K-T) extinction event is the most well-known because it wiped out the dinosaurs, a series of other mass extinction events has occurred throughout the history of the Earth, some even more devastating than K-T. Mass extinctions are periods in Earth's history when abnormally large numbers of species die out simultaneously or within a limited time frame. The most severe occurred at the end of the Permian period when 96% of all species perished. This along with K-T are two of the Big Five mass extinctions, each of which wiped out at least half of all species. Many smaller scale mass extinctions have occurred, indeed the disappearance of many animals and plants at the hands of man in prehistoric, historic and modern times will eventually show up in the fossil record as mass extinctions. Discover more about Earth's major extinction events below.

So to sum that up in terms you should be able to understand: dinosaurs that died out at the end of the Triassic (200 MYA) died out so long ago that the last living dinosaurs are much closer to us on a geological scale (65 MYA).

The earth has been repopulated through evolution many times, and continues to happen today. Evolution hasn't stopped it is on going.

ETA: I didn't really catch the "like on Earth" portion. As of yet, no we have no hard evidence for evolution occurring outside of Earth. As already pointed out, there are hypotheses that methane being witnessed on other celestial bodies could be organic in origin.

You might ask why the multiple rovers currently on Mars have yet to find any evidence of life. That is a good question, but I bet you didn't realize that we are actively avoiding some of the potential "hot spots" on Mars. LINK

Areas of the planet that meet currently known conditions for life on earth are being avoided because there is no way to guarantee that Mars rovers are sterile. We don't want to intentionally seed these areas with microbes from earth. Organisms like Archaea can survive in incredibly harsh climates, and would likely have no problem taking hold on Mars.

You know, there would be no argument about evolution if Neanderthals or another species of man were alive today. Man is closer in DNA to chimps than chimps are to gorillas.

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I also don't believe that a frog, for instance, hopped out of a pond one day and decided to grow legs and become a cow

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Why is this argument always used against evolution? Snakes didn't decide that it would be nice to have fangs so they started growing them. Birds didn't start flapping their wings really hard until they grew large enough for them to take flight.

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That's the beauty of being human in that we have the ability to decide for ourselves what we wish to believe and what we don't...ain't it beautiful?

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Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Choosing not to believe in settled science is illogical. If you don't accept it at face value, then create a hypothesis and test it.

People get there feathers rustled because ignorant yokels who base their beliefs about evolution on PowerPoint presentations given by their pastors essentially dismiss the education and often the life's work of men 100x smarter than them.

The problem with ignorance is that the less you know, the less likely you are to know you don't know things.

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People get there feathers rustled because ignorant yokels who base their beliefs about evolution on PowerPoint presentations given by their pastors essentially dismiss the education and often the life's work of men 100x smarter than them.

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I'm curious which high school drop out of a preacher taught tuptiger his information on evolution. Really it topped anything beejon and DawgfaninCA have ever said in the stupidity department.

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You sure do like to throw around that word ignorance a lot. I'm not sure it's the right word you're looking for as maybe misinformed or undereducated on the subject might be a better suited term.

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Ignorance, in fact, means a lack of knowledge on a subject. However, that's a silly exercise in debating semantics.

While a large part of the lack of understanding of evolution surrounds mentally wrestling with the idea of speciation over millennia, many of these people have not taken the time to try and read through the literature on evolutionary biology.

If you study a wide variety of articles and publications and come to the conclusion that there is still a large gap in knowledge surrounding so-called "macroevolution," then you better be able to defend your central thesis.

Throwing up the defense that you are basing this on faith or belief means that you are willfully denying empirical evidence proven by a vast catalog of peer-reviewed research with no logical conclusion of your own.