Couldn't alter all the genes in your body (unless it was a very dangerous viral mutation! Scary!) but could alter the DNA in one cell and cause it to e.g. grow uncontrollably in to a tumour. Also, radiation damage (probably more from radioactive materials than from UV) can damage reproductive cells which could then affect the overall DNA of subsequent offspring. There are a few horror stories of places where this has happened, and whole generations have been born deformed because of the parents being exposed to unsafe levels of radioactivity.

(Course on the flip side, you might end up with X-Men)

Seriously - thats a lot of sunbeds though...........

x-men - cool

You need to work more and stop watchin all of these genetic mutation/evolution movies....

The OP lists his occupation as "Student".

Reckon he out to concentrate a bit more on his studies, and learn something about the scientific method, evolution and logic.

'Course, he might be just trying to stir us up?

If not, I'd like some of what he's on, please....

Not according to that Claire chick who died recently!

Wol - Yes I think you're right, but he does raise some interesting topics every now and then! (Just hope he is not student of anything scientific!)

Well not really, because the quote about the absurdity of the eye being a result of evolution was from Darwin himself. I doubt he was any kind of creationalist

Yeah I get that. It's just that an earlier post said there were loads of very tiny mutations in the body. Some can be caused by UV rays etc. I'm speaking purely on a hypothetical basis.

Moneypen - That analogy is quality stuff! What I mean is a perfectly good car that's well maintained will stop when the battery is removed. You could leave it like that for pretty much eternity if the parts were all maintained. Get a battery and pop that puppy in and it would still run. If the dead dudes parts were all "maintained" however that would be possible, but he was just missing that one thing that classes us as being alive, do you think it would be possible to bring him back to life?

I reckon he learnt his stuff at school of hard knocks.... and he is currently studying at the university of life.

Hey, I'm 20!

Lots of time left to learn then!

What I don't get is this;

If we all evolved from some single cell amoeba or whatever and everything is evolving to be 'better' - ie to be able to survive better (that IS what the theory is isn't it?) - why are the so many hundreds of thousands of completely different, mostly (I discount the cockroach) amazingly complex forms of life on this planet all getting along just fine thankyou??

What I mean is - if we've been evolving for millions and millions of years (by the way - the statement somewhere in this thread that we have now evolved more dextrous thumbs due to mobile phones - well, let's just say that I let a bit of wee out) why on earth haven't we all evolved into the same 'being'? You know - the 'most likely to survive' species? Some might argue that humans are just that (and I'd agree as I just don't get this evolution theory - it doesn't make sense) but what about everything else?? Why, for example, are cockroaches still around? Why are they still here when everyone dumps gallons of mortein on the things? Are we suggesting that - at some point in our evolution - we were cockroaches? Or maybe something similar but with thumbs?

The other big thing I have a problem with is, if we are all evolving (and continuously so according to the theory) why the bloomin' heck isn't there either;

A) One single 'being' on earth - due to the fact that we have all evolved to the pinacle of evolution (or at least at the same point along the road)

B) A 'smooth' transition of 'beings' from Bex ( ) to the most intelligent human being. Why are there 'jumps' from amoeba to cockroach to fish to cat to what-the-hell-ever??

I don't get it

Why - from all the fossils that have been dug up are there no 'in-between-can't-quite-make-my-mind-up-what-I-want-to-be' fossils?

I think there's big, BIG holes in the whole thing. I'm not suggesting I have an answer - it just winds me up people saying that 'THIS IS HOW IT IS - WHY DON'T YOU GOOGLE IT' - just because some dude in a wheelchair told them so.

Graham

There aren't gaps - it's just that the entire sequence of every species' evolution is not apparent any more, because some parts were not competitive and died out/moved on.

I'm with you on the dextrous thumbs comment!

The fact that cockroaches are still successful despite all our mortein is testament to their extreme survival skills!! Very few species could exist in isolation, we all need each other & rely on each other to function normally. Things change, of course, and species come and go, but if all species but one were wiped out then I don't think that one species would survive very long - unless it were some simple single-celled organism from the very beginning of the chain.

If there were one superhuman who was the pinnacle of evolution (which is impossible anyway, as evolution is continuous) then either they would have to breed with non-superhumans, or if you had several of them then they would become inbred quickly and not be superhuman anymore. You need variety in the genepool to retain 'hybrid vigour', otherwise inbreeding results in 'inferior spawn'. (see the European royal family over the last few hundred years!)

This is exactly my point - why aren't we all the same species?

Then why aren't we all cockroaches?

Graham

Ummmm.... Your first point doesn't make sense to me.

Neither does your second! Thousands of other species are also highly successfully adapted to their own little niches in the world's ecosystems. A cockroach wouldn't survive that well underwater, neither could sharks take over the rainforests or crocodiles take over the Arctic.

Or you just winding me up now?!

>>I think there's big, BIG holes in the whole thing. I'm not suggesting I have an answer - it just winds me up people saying that 'THIS IS HOW IT IS - WHY DON'T YOU GOOGLE IT' - just because some dude in a wheelchair told them so.<<

Every word matters: "Evolution by Natural Selection".

Nature provides millions of niches: extremes of wetness, dryness, temperature, salinity etc etc.

A few individuals are able, by mutation or just by being that little bit hardier, to survive better than the rest - and are therefore obviously more likely to survive and breed. Therefore their "hardier" genes get more widely distributed than the less "hardy" ones, and the speciation gradually takes place. In actual fact in many cases it's remarkably rapid. It's been demonstrated time and time again - it's not just some wild theory. An example is the spotted moth (and see my next paragraph: that applies to the spotted moth!).

Creationists are fond of quoting various studies which are partly inconclusive as being "proof" that evolution is nonsense - and then dropping that particular argument when later studies clear up the inconclusivity, and seizing some on other tack.

They are also rather keen on the straw man argument: putting some flawed argument into the scientists' mouths and then demolishing it.

But weren't humans once fish of some kind? Decided we'd better grow arms etc and crawled out of the bog? Why are there still think's in the bog? Did they get left behind?

Didn't we all start in the water?

Wol - with the greatest of respect - I have no idea what on earth you're talking about