Poll: Do you think evolution and the earth were effected by outside sources?

[Nimzabaat]

I do enjoy the thought that all science has really told us is that the odds of all this happening by chance are astronomical, far beyond miraculous really... and there's no god.

Also if you factor out "benevolent deity" it just becomes aliens. There may be a deity or deities (or aliens advanced enough that they could be called deities) but there is nothing to support the phrase "benevolent".

Then again, there's always this;

 

[The White Hunter]

Nope. Sorry. Gonna have to be that guy.

ef·fect
[ih-fekt] Show IPA
noun
1.
something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence: Exposure to the sun had the effect of toughening his skin.
2.
power to produce results; efficacy; force; validity; influence: His protest had no effect.
3.
the state of being operative or functional; operation or execution; accomplishment or fulfillment: to bring a plan into effect.
4.
a mental or emotional impression produced, as by a painting or a speech.
5.
meaning or sense; purpose or intention: She disapproved of the proposal and wrote to that effect.

You mean:

af·fect
1 [v. uh-fekt; n. af-ekt] Show IPA
verb (used with object)
1.
to act on; produce an effect or change in: Cold weather affected the crops.
2.
to impress the mind or move the feelings of: The music affected him deeply.
3.
(of pain, disease, etc.) to attack or lay hold of.
noun
4.
Psychology . feeling or emotion.
5.
Psychiatry. an expressed or observed emotional response: Restricted, flat, or blunted affect may be a symptom of mental illness, especially schizophrenia.
6.
Obsolete , affection; passion; sensation; inclination; inward disposition or feeling.

[footnote]Sourced from http://dictionary.reference.com/[/footnote]

On topic: Yes. The sun affects everything on Earth and without nothing would happen. Ever. Similarly influences from the moon are the result of collisions with asteroids millions of years ago smashing a big hunk of rock into space.

But if you mean aliens? Intelligent life? Not likely.

 

[thiosk]

The only likely outside sources of influence are impactors, asteroid or cometary, solar variability, and most importantly, the moon.

There is no grand alien plan or deity guiding the upright earthly mammal's progression. The moon is the big reason for our presence- the earth's tilt is stabilized by virtue of being in the earth moon system and that provided the billions of years of relative climate stability needed to go from archea to protozoa and beyond.

I posit that getting to archea organisms is pretty easy for a chemically rich, warm, watery planet, but going full-blown-cambrian-explosion requires a combination of metallicity, location, and stability that is extraordinarily rare in the galaxy.

 

[The Event]

Extra terrestrial natural phenomena certainly had an effect on the evolution of life on Earth.
But no, nothing was done deliberately by an intelligent entity.

With over 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe, each one containing hundreds of billions of stars, even something as vastly improbable as life is going to occur on rather more than a few planets.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

It was the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Spoiler

 

[CriticalMiss]

As we all know, life originated from a discarded egg and cress sandwich. So I guess that counts as an external source.

 

[Lieju]

I do enjoy the thought that all science has really told us is that the odds of all this happening by chance are astronomical, far beyond miraculous really... and there's no god.

So? If it never happened, there would be no-one here on this planet asking how we came to be here.

And the universe is big, even if the chances are really small for life to appear on any one planet, when you think of the whole universe, the chances of there being life are pretty good.

Also, 'god' isn't a scientific concept, so science really has nothing to say about it.
Theory of evolution isn't about god, it's about how evolution works, just like the theory of gravitation doesn't concern itself with theology.

I see no reason why God couldn't have created life on Earth through evolution over the course of billions of years. Indeed, it makes sense that a supposedly benevolent deity would subtly alter life throughout the eons so it would be able to adapt to the changing conditions of the world.

Why, though? Is your idea of god something that must stay undetected, and work in ways that cannot be detected and might just as well be random chance?
It just seems unnecessary to me, is all.

That's what exasperates me about the "Creation vs. Evolution" debate. Just because you believe in one doesn't mean you automatically have to throw out the other. They are not mutually exclusive ideas, unless you're one of those that interprets everything in the Bible literally.

Well, I just don't like claims made without evidence.
I don't see any reason to believe in gods, but if people believe in them, it's their business. But when they make claims, they need to provide evidence for me to take them seriously.
(And accept it tought as science for kids, for example)

There certainly are people who believe in god and accept the evolutionary theory, but their reasons for believeing in god tend to be different than their scientific views.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Outside forces?

Hell yeah. Radiation, foreign substances... that kind of outside forces. The utterly unbelievable improbability of life developing and humans evolving from it? That bit is pretty mind-blowing and magic, hence religion. For everyday physical life, I'm with team science. For all matters of that special little something that differentiates us from dogs, kitten, ants and furries, I thank God and I do my best to have a good time with any other gens d'esprit for the short and bumpy little ride we're allowed to share on Earth. For all the forces of evil and acolytes of death and destruction, I reserve my infusion of pure hatred. For what it's worth, it's pretty much OK.

Alas, there is little we can do to properly counter ignorance and evil on a larger scale. Too bad. I'm glad to have accepted some understanding of the basic concept of hope, for I would certainly grow stark raving mad otherwise.

People that entertain serious notions about aliens and other disruptive propaganda should be outsourced to the moon, so they would finally stop their degenerating influence on mankind as a whole.

 

[Lightknight]

No way of knowing, I suppose. I wouldn't even rule out life itself being extra terrestrial in origin (little bit of algae thawing out on earth after a particularly large chunk of ice slams into it from space).

I will contribute that God is necessarily an alien/extra terrestrial being. Benevolent or not. I see all three options aside from random chance to be equivalent with benevolence being the only particular qualifier.

I wonder, if you believe that God set the Big Bang in motion if that would qualify as effected by outside forces. On face value I think it does but contextually it seems like you want to know about direct interaction with the earth itself.

 

[Froggy Slayer]

Silly humans! It is well known that all native life upon this world is simply the product of the failed genetic experiments of the Elder Things. Soon, Great Cthulhu shall rise from his sleep in Black Ry'leh and he and his Star Spawn shall reclaim the land, and the waste of humanity will be obliterated.

IA IA CTHULHU FH'TAGN

 

[frizzlebyte]

SNIP

I agree with you, for the most part.

Here is my relevant post from the other thread on this topic:

As for my part, yes I support and accept evolution, based on a preponderance of both documented and readily observable evidence. I also believe that religion and science can, and should, exist together.

I heavily subscribe to the idea that, even if something seems random to us, it might not be to an outside observer, based on the idea that if one knew or could calculate the position and movement of every atom in the universe, one could, in effect, predict the movements of said atoms, precluding the idea that events are random. So for our own purposes evolution (and by extension pretty much every other thing that happens in the universe) is random, but may not be, in fact, random, but also not guided by said outside observer.

Just for the record, I am Christian.

 

[Kolby Jack]

I think until we know how EVERYTHING happened and how it all works, it seems foolish to put all your eggs in one basket. Atheism is just as much a matter of faith as any religion. Certainty is unattainable on either side of the argument and will be for the foreseeable future. I choose not to worry about it, because in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter. What will be, will be.

 

[chadachada123]

Better poll that that other guy! (Flings poo over fence)

Do you think that our life filled planet and humans as a sentient race occurred entirely through an insanely minute probability of chance happenings in the universe? Or do you think that something...some kind of factorable law of the galaxy, an intelligent entity beyond our understanding, or other meddling sentient have had a hand in our creation?

The primary issue with the bolded portion is this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

Simply put, if we didn't evolve here on Earth, we wouldn't BE here to comment on how low the chances are. It is not much different than a cosmic lottery, where the chances of YOU winning the lottery is extremely slim, but people still win it on occasion. The person who wins COULD say "Man, look at those insanely minute probabilities! It must have been some sort of outside force guiding it!", but that would seem a bit cop-out-ish.

Even then, I don't think that life is at all rare in this universe, given that our galaxy alone has 100-400 billion stars, and that many of them have a dozen planets, and that a good number of those planets are a size that could support life as we know it, and is in the Goldilocks zone where water occurs at all three states...

Beyond this, life in itself isn't exactly complex.

This explains it rather well:

From there, natural selection, NOT RANDOM PROBABILITY, guides life's evolution.

 

[Mezworld24]

I hope it was aliens who made us. That would be a hell of a fun origin story, prove that we're not alone, and they may be able to smack some sense into us

 

[Lonewolfm16]

Considering the size of the universe, I see no reason that life is so unlikely. All life is is a self replicating chemical system that can change between generations. As long as you have a self replicating system, mutation and natural selection will take care of the rest, no deity needed. Aliens could have changed our evolution, but I feel its a bit like proposing faeries as the explanation for why my pencil hits the ground when I drop it. I have a perfectly good answer, even if I don't know everything about it. And if there is a deity with any kind of real power, they are in no way benevolent. Natural disasters kill million, horrible diseases have stalked humanity since the beginning of time, the entire food chain is a cycle of death, any reasonably benevolent deity would have done much better than this. So according to my moral standards our supposed creator(s) are only benevolent if this is the best they can do.

 

[Skeleon]

No. Intelligence is just one survival strategy. Humanity isn't the "goal" of evolution, guided or otherwise. For billions of years, life did just fine without higher brain functions. If this was guided, it was guided very poorly. But don't mistake that to mean it was "random" that we are here today. It's no more random than a rock rolling down a hill following the forces of gravity.

 

[Matthew Jabour]

This is a nice little poll you've got here. Might as well throw my two cents in.

I've never really put much stock into the God/aliens theory. I mean, it is perfectly possible for an alien race to have guided humans every step of the way, even starting at the time of the dinosaurs, to become the dominant species of our planet...but why? You'd have to be pretty patient to go 'Nah, these dinosaur things aren't quite working out', then start over and wait 65 million years to get it right.

It's a valid argument, but I'm in the probability category. Just makes more sense to me.

P.S. Fix your spelling. Just because you came from monkeys doesn't mean you get to spell like one.

 

[Hoplon]

Better poll that that other guy! (Flings poo over fence)

Do you think that our life filled planet and humans as a sentient race occurred entirely through an insanely minute probability of chance happenings in the universe? Or do you think that something...some kind of factorable law of the galaxy, an intelligent entity beyond our understanding, or other meddling sentient have had a hand in our creation?

Not necessarily in such a degree as "Plopped humans down on earth millions of years ago and there ya are!" but potentially in such subtle degrees as slight shifts in atmosphere and ocean to better produce life.
Tampering with a few gene sequences to put one species on a path unlike any other on the planet. Or then again, as overt as directing a meteor at the earth to kill all Apex predators in order to allow a new Eco-system to be established.

No I do not think god exists. Since that's basically what this question is asking.

 

[BrotherRool]

Okay this is getting on very fine philosophical territory but: Yes

However! Not in anyway more than I believe anything existing at all was affected by outside sources.


Basically, I believe in God, but view the idea that God created a universe that didn't run exactly according to his will without having to constantly ducktape it up to make it do what He wants, really imperfect. God is the Arbiter of all, when he makes a universe there's not a friggin' quark that doesn't appear exactly where he intended it to. So yeah the radiation happened to strike the specific animal and the specific chromosome that just so happened to lead to the mutation that was always planned, because he's God and bugs aren't going to pop up willy nilly without God having chosen that thing to happen.

But! Absolutely everything occurred one hundred percent naturally (well with a significant historical exception) and not just naturally but in a cohesive scientific way that fully makes sense within the universe we've been given.


...well at least that's what I like to think, I haven't been given any unique knowledge in any of this, but for what I believe it seems the most right.

 

[Vausch]

I don't particularly think we needed a deity to have abiogenesis or for the earth to form itself (all you need for the latter is gravity and magnetism). I'm not adamantly opposed to the idea of life coming from other planets in its earliest stages though, like bacteria on meteorites.