evolution **caution: long post ahead**
Obviously, there are many opinions on evolution and it can be a very touchy subject with some people. Here's what I think about it:
First of all, I think evolution is misunderstood by a lot of people, both people who don't believe in it and people who do. I think the most common misconception is that evolution happens all of a sudden, for no good reason: a little monkey is just walking along, minding his own business, when the earth starts to rumble, and **ShaZayum!** the monkey turns into a human and man is born.
That's not how it works (though if it were, I bet it would be fun to watch :wink: ) Actually, evolution is defined as a change in the frequency of alleles in a population.
What the heck does that mean? It means this: imagine that you were immortal, and you came back to the same place at the same time every year and looked at the group of a certain kind of animal that lived there, like the bullfrogs in a particular pond, the whitetail deer in a particular forest, etc. and you did this every year for a long time. You might notice that some years the animals looked or behaved a little different than they did other years. Evolution doesn't have to be anything so dramatic as a fish evolving into a lizard or anything, it's mostly just subtle changes in the way animals look or act that helps them survive better in their environment.
Imagine you've got some gazelles living in a savannah, and they're just chillin', no predators, they're all fat, slow, and dumb, just hangin' out eatin' some grass. Cool. Then a lionness moves into that area. Now, there's fast gazelles and there's slow gazelles, and it ain't good to be a slow gazelle. Now, how fast you run can be affected by a lot of things: how much practice or training you've had, how strong your muscles are, etc. But some of those things, like how good your reflexes are, how quickly you can change direction while running, etc., are things you were just born with, not things you got from practice. Well, the gazelles that were born with the kinds of genes that give them useful skills like fast reflexes, ability to change direction quickly, and general coordination (ie, the non-klutzy gazelles) are the ones that are going to do well in this situation. They'll get away. Now, our friends the slow, bad-reflexes, no coordination (four left hooves you might say), klutzy gazelles are going to run in the wrong direction, and be all slow, and trip over their own four left hooves, and they are going to provide food for the lion.
Unfortunately, such is life. Now, all the gazelles left alive are going to go on with their lives, and HAVE BABY GAZELLES. <-- that's important. So the genes that helped them run away from the lion, as well as all their other genes, will be passed on to their kids. So imagine this keeps up for a while. Lion eats the slowest ones, fastest ones have babies. If you come back every year, you're going to notice that what started out as a group of fat, lazy, slow, dumb gazelles, is going to turn into a stragetic, lean, limber, fast, coordinated bunch of LION-EVADING MACHINES, baby!
No single gazelle changed. But the group is different than it was a few generations ago. AND THAT'S EVOLUTION. Evolution is when a group of living things becomes different than their parents, grandparents, great-great-great-grandparents, whatever. Lady peacocks (called peahens, if you wanna get all fancy) like brightly-colored gentlemen. The brightly-colored peacocks get all the girls, and the dull-looking peacocks get left all lonely. So when that year's crop of baby peacocks shows up, guess who the daddies are? If the dads are brightly-colored, so are the babies. And then when they grow up, those girls pick the brightest-colored boys. So over time, the peacocks get brighter and brighter.
Now, as for religion. I personally believe in evolution, and I am a person of faith. I like to think of evolution as "God's way of doing things." You agree that a lion in town will make the gazelles faster eventually, right? But you've never seen a blaze of lighting, a poof of smoke, and a loud bang right before all the gazelles instantly become leaner, smarter, and better at evading the lion, have you? There has to be a balance between the lion getting food and the gazelles getting to stay alive, and guess who's in charge of keeping that balance? So, I think that evolution is how the balance is kept: some live, some die, and both the gazelles and the lions (who starve if they aren't fast runners, and therefore get faster too, just like the gazelles) become better at living together and there's never too many of either kind. (If there's ever too many gazelles, the lions eat better and are more healthy and have more babies who eat gazelles which brings it back into balance, and if there's too many lions there's not enough food to go around, so some starve and then the balance is restored.) I like to think of evolution as one good way that the One who created the lions and the gazelles and all the other things keeps life here on Earth balanced and in harmony with itself.
Seems I missed lots of good stuff. Thanks Biliskner for taking over. You seem to have a good handle on alot of the scientific stuff. I have to do research because I am not familiar with a lot of the new scientific theories because they seem to have to make up a new one when the one they are using doesn't quite work the way they want it to. 
Way back on page 11 or 12 I stated that scientists need to use their termonology correctly. There is a BIG difference between adaptation, mutation and evolution. Know the difference and make sure you use it correctly please (and thank you) :wink:
love your quote too jack!
