why DID we evolve into humans?

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There can be no doubt that modern man is the result of evolution. Equally there is no doubt that humankind and the entire universe are God’s creation.

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Wow. Thanks for coming in here and setting us all straight. Let's pack it up and go home folks...there's nothing to see here...move along...go back to your normal lives.Oh, Malachi...next time you care to assert that there is no doubt that this or that happened you might want to bring along a bit of evidence to back up your opinion. The difference between a shouting match and a debate is evidence. If there really were no doubt about those things there would be no reason for this message board.Oh, you might also like to look at the date of the last post in the thread so's you don't dredge up a year-old topic and drag it up to the top of the vat where it makes all the fresh stuff taste yucky.

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

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What difference does it make to human progress if we were created or evolved, or both? Should we be more concerned about where we are going, or is it purely a matter of survival of the fittest?

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A large part of knowing where you're going is understanding where you've been. We cannot make scientific progress without looking at evidence from the past to see how things work. We then try to draw conclusions from what we've seen and predict what we will see in the future. Look, by the time we see anything it's already ancient history...if we're going to automatically discount the past why should we make arbitrary decisions about what we should look at and what we shouldn't?

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I mean, do we bump off the old and weak?

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It's been known to happen.

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Do we teach children the importance of morality, or encourage them to act like their elders?

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Are those mutually exclusive options? Personally I'd rather teach children how to think for themselves. Ya ever notice that bad things tend to happen when people start telling other people what they should think?

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You might think these questions are old chestnuts. But perhaps they are important to some people. Evidence exists in how we live more than how we think.

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Actually, I think these questions are non sequiturs to the discussion at hand, but I realize some people may feel that science somehow violates ethical principals. At its very core science is a process...completely amoral and with the single goal of advancing our understanding of the universe. We try very hard to separate our own emotions, wants and beliefs from science because we know these things can cause us to reach the wrong conclusions from what we see.The question then becomes: "Is science bad for us because it gives us an impartial view of nature?". I think that's a question for another topic. Here we're supposed to talk about why man evolved. The question sorta makes the assumption that he did.

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

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Since no one has yet come up with the definitive answers to the questions it might be fair to say that most recent posts might taste 'yucky' in less than one year.

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Science doesn't claim to provide definitive answers. That's what religions do...there's only a problem if you think the purpose of science is to come along and validate your religion for you.

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And, pray tell, why would I wish to read every posting on all subjects? Would I discover anything important that my life's experience, common sense and personal recognition has not taught me?

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You'll never know unless you read them now will you? It's damned arrogant to assume that you know everything there is that's worth knowing all on your own don't you think? Since you're such a smart feller you just go ahead and feel free to straighten us out on all those little fiddly-points we keep re-hashing without coming up with definitive answers.Just make sure to bring your evidence with you.

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

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What evidence have you to indicate an understanding of where we have been will help guide us to where we're going?

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Oh, just thinking off the top of my head...how about...books? You see, books allow people who have been somewhere, seen something, done something or whatever to tell their stories to those who have not. In certain cases those people may learn from those stories. In a more rigorous context we make records of our past achievements and failures and allow those to guide us in our exploaration.We don't require everyone to start from scratch...you didn't have to invent language and writing before you could post here or agriculture before they'd let you buy a loaf of bread. Our knowledge is built on the wisdom and experiences of those who came before us and passed down their knowledge. Even the bible is such a record (I think we can all agree that at least the instructional parts qualify as recorded wisdom) which means that God doesn't have to come down personally every generation or so to tell us what we can eat and under what circumstances we can prostitute our children.

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Your remark that "by the time we see anything it's ancient history" is frankly meaningless.

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Perhaps it is meaningless to you...but the statement is still precisely true. Because there is no instantaneous transmission of information, the act of observation must always occur at some point in time following the event. I admit using the term "ancient history" is a bit of a dramatization, but it is a term without a specific meaning. Perception always lags the actual event.

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How can seeing the blossoming of love be ancient history? Or is love something that is scientifically beyond provation?

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Since love is an emotion I would think that seeing the blossiming of love would require a really sophisticated type of brain scan and even then we wouldn't be actually seeing love. Scientists don't dispute that the emotion of love exists, but would probably dispute the tangible reality of something we would recognize as love. Even if they could observe it they could only do so after the event...just like everything else.So what does all this have to do with why we evolved Malachi?

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

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Excellent! I have read one or two. Fritjof Capra in The Turning Point seemed to strike a few chords of ”instinctive’ truth. On page 33 he writes “To put it bluntly, scientists do not deal with truth; they deal with limited and approximate descriptions of reality.” That’s only for starters. May I assume you have read him? What really interests me is Capra’s honesty and clarity about modern physics. Most recently “The Web of Life”.

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I seem to recall reading "The Tao of Physics" at some point, but I frankly don't remember a lot of it. Capra seems obsessed with discovering some sort of uber-framework that will tie together all scientific knowledge. Personally I think he is more willing to bend the universe to fit his ideas than visa-versa. I acknowledge that scientists are not concerned with discovering universal truth, instead they are finding things of more practical use. Since you like quotes here's an oldy but goody from Joseph Stalin: "Perfect is the enemy of good enough."As for the other authors, well I don't read all that much on cosmology myself and I have to wonder just how you think they have anything at all to do with human origins. We do have cosmology fora for you if you'd like to discuss that with people who understand it better than I do. My understanding of those books (while admitting I haven't read them) is that Chown's "Afterglow" is a decent layman's introduction to the Cosmic Background Explorer experiments and Swimme is seemingly critical of science for not spending enough time smelling the flowers of beauty which surround us. In either case these are books for laymen which avoid the ugly maths and evidence and stuff which fills real science books. You don't expect people to understand the bible from reading Chick tracts...don't expect to understand science until you can follow the real documentation.

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I understand and respect your comment. However, if you have had children of your own then you may agree that they seldom accept your wisdom or experience. Our species seems to have a need always to experience for ourselves and to gain our own wisdom from those experiences. Am I wrong to suggest that history is often more repeated than the lessons learned?

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Since we continue to advance our knowledge you are demonstrably wrong. It's not what children do before they grow up, but what we do collectively that counts here.

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I suggest you are being unnecessarily provocative. The tangible reality of love is self evident in everything our species has created; architecture, music, art, inventions, social models, etc. The list is long. All were created through a desire to be of loving service. Would you disagree that emotions of hate have always been destructive?

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So I can boil all of these things down and get a glass of love out of them? Love is an emotion...if we assume there is a God then even his love is intangible. You are also discounting the myriad of practical uses which these things have to imbue them with a quality which they do not have. Architecture keeps us out of the rain; sure it can be decorative and even inspiring, but the real reason it's there is because it sucks to be cold and wet. Even art inspired by the emotion of love does not actually contain love itself, it merely reflects the feelings the artist wishes to convey...it's sophisticated communication nothing more.

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If there is a God then, it seems to me by definition, that we and everything in the universe, are the result of divine Love.

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And if there is no God what are we then? Unless you have some sort of proof for God's existence you might want to at least consider other explanations.

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There is only one faltering unscientific answer I can offer. We have evolved for the purpose of continuing the process of evolution that began with the eruption of divine Love. We are intelligent and sensitive creatures; essential elements of creation, and (dare I suggest?) an important thread in the web of life.

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Okay you now have a hypothesis...remember this is a science forum... now come up with an experiment that tests your conculsion and see if it survives in the real world. That's how science works. I'd suggest you forget about showing the presence of divine love and focus on something a little easier to see...perhaps something that will show that human evolution is either guided or has an ultimate goal.So step one: show that human evolution has a purpose. Step two: worry about the purpose.

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

I'm not supposed to reply to this one because it has the big red flag, but the response does address the OP and the only reason it might deserve a red flag is lack of scientific support for the opinions expressed. So here goes anyway and maybe I'll get a red flag of my very own.

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Step one: History seems to indicate that the purpose of human evolution is two-fold:

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I'm a big fan of history, but this is a science forum not a history forum. Human evolution started long before history. We also have to remember that history is an art and not a science; historians routinely jump to conclusions without the kind of support a scientist would require. This is only natural since so much of history is based on exploring the very real human motivations for historical acts.

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1) To invent WMD’s powerful enough to destroy the planet, and 2) to consume everything as quickly as possible before destroying the planet.

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Well I don't know where you pulled those from, but they qualify as a hypothesis...now there's a few things you need to do:
1. List the observations that lead you to form your hypothesis.
2. State the hypothesis clearly.
3. Devise a rigorous test for your hypothesis that is capable of showing your hypothesis is incorrect as stated.
4. Run your experiment and document the results.

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One more purpose was suggested by Stephen Hawking, another scientist whom you may regard with disdain. His idea completely removed the human element from evolution so it doesn’t apply.

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Why would I regard Stephen Hawking with disdain? He's a brilliant man, but he is not a biologist, geneticist or an expert in paleo-anthropology so his opinion on human evolution carries no special weight. The works you referred to were all popular literature on subjects not remotely related to the OP Malachi; they weren't even scientific studies. Brilliant scientists who are capable of excellent works of science can also be lured by big publishing dollars for works that explain everything to the average joes. The scientific value of those works is quite variable and not dependent on the quality of the scientist.Real science is done in published studies that are reviewed and critiqued by a body of other scientists. They don't send them off to the New York Times for inclusion on the Best Selling Scientific Studies list. The experiments are documented and can be performed by anyone so they can see the results for themselves and validate or challenge the original findings.

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Step two: I worry not about the purpose because I will not be around to witness our self destruction.

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Since you are posting in this forum I concluded that you have a scientific opinion on the reasons behind human evolution. Now you claim to not be worried about such things...I suppose because you either expect to die or be raptured away before whatever end-time prophecy you happen to be following today. Move that discussion over to the religious forums where it belongs...here you are expected to apply the methods of science instead of relying on prophecies which have, so far, failed to come true as the "experts" predict.I can use science to make accurate, useful predictions...you can use faith to make fuzzy, weak predictions that leave you plenty of wiggle room for when they fail to manifest. Which do you suppose is worth more to our civilization?

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research