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Why do you find the evolution of life so fascinating?

So the up coming Wednesday, I will be holding a speech in front of my class. The theme is "Inner and outer journeys". I instantly came up with the Journey through evolution. So the deadline is near and I have written nada, it is not that I do not love the evolutionary theory, but it is because I do not know in what way to approach it. My teacher told me that I should pick an angel to work with and not just become angry and speak against religion (Because I am a very outspoken Anti Theist and I speak openly, and loudly about how horrible religion is. Also, she is a christian.). I will talk about the fascination I have of evolution, I will analyze a picture of nature with cows in it, I will take a piece from Richard Dawkins book "The greatest show on earth" (Probably the bit with the 44 percenters and how they are similar to the history deniers, but if you have a tip on a great chapter or a great pharagraph in this book, or another book, just tell me). I will then speak about my concern for the future of the human evolution and how people like these deniers, cause harm upon society. I will show my great disappointment with people who wastes their intelligence on drinking every weekend and not using their brains for intelligent matters.

I will also wear my "We are all Africans" T shirt during the speech, so when I bring this up, I can hit my chest with my fist and say loudly "WE are all Africans!".

I will try to place this small piece of opinionated text into the speech

"I don't give a damn for other peoples opinion, I only care about the facts. So I am not an enthusiast for diversity of opinion, where factual matters are concerned. I am against the propagation of outdated, rather unimaginative ideas about the world, which is so much less exciting, so much less enthralling, so much less thrilling than the truth. I am against religion that teaches people to be satisfied with nonexplanations for things, when in the 21th century we have extremely good explanations, and we are getting better ones. " The speech will be in Swedish by the way.

So if you have some great advise on what to write about this theme and the evolution of life (but mostly about the evolution of man).

And I would also like to ask you; What do you find fascinating about the evolution of life?

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Permalink Reply by Teagraves on November 3, 2011 at 3:19pm

A devout Christian friend once asked me how I could think evolution was more amazing than the work of God. I told her it was much more amazing that we came about by chance, we're lucky to be here, and we're all natural!

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Permalink Reply by Jimmy Hilli on November 3, 2011 at 3:55pm

@Fil Salustri Thanks!

@Teagraves The fact that we are all here, without any higher supreme meaning, created by some celestial totalitarian deity, warms my heart even more than any religious belief. There is no punishment for your acts on earth in the afterlife, but you may be judged by your society. So you could basically do anything without getting sent to hell, but, our morals that we have gotten from society and our evolutionary instinct, gets in the way of us committing horrific acts. Christians gets their moral views from the bible, but let us say that someone went against their religion for some random reason, he could do whatever he wants because the only thing he is focusing on is his rebellion against his god, not against society. And to just get your morals from the bible means that you get EVERY single bit that the bible claims as morals, and it is often that these people are lunatics. But some Christians gets there morals not only from the bible, but from other aspects of our world.

If people claim that we get our morals from the bible, then that would indicate that we humans have achieved NOTHING when it comes to our eventful and historic evolution. To think like this, is so horrible, so morally disgusting that it makes me resent religion even more.

Now I hope that you comrades can understand me correctly, because if some words seems oddly placed or if some parts of the text seems difficult to understand, just shout.

Science and reason shall prevail!

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Permalink Reply by Jimmy Hilli on November 3, 2011 at 3:56pm

@Fil Salustri Thanks!

Now I hope that you comrades can understand me correctly, because if some words seems oddly placed or if some parts of the text seems difficult to understand, just shout.

Science and reason shall prevail!

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Wiggin on November 3, 2011 at 4:12pm

They let you say Damn in school in Sweden? Gosh.

Sometime this year, I was looking out in the backyard and watched a family of deer interacting. The mom would sneak up to one of the fawns and start licking and grooming it. The fawn would get uncomfortable and twitch away. Then the mon would sneak up to the other fawn and start in on that one. It was so much like a human family that I lost all desire to kill and eat them.

I don't think we "came from" deer, I just think we're all animals, for better and worse.

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Permalink Reply by Jimmy Hilli on November 3, 2011 at 4:20pm

Of course, I can say fuck (or in Swedish that would be "Fan/Helvete/Fitta". I am allowed to say it, but, it may affect the grade of my speech because I used profanity (which is not that professional)

Yeah, there are so much similarities between us and our relatives. But the chimpanzee or the gorilla (The former the closest cousin of humans and the latter not as close, but close.) have a lot of similarities, they can even learn to communicate by sign language (Just look at some videos with Koko the gorilla). Some behaviors that I have noticed is when apes throw their feces when they are angry (or because of some other emotional reasons). Some humans throw things when they are mad or use physical force (as humans do). Then we have the same "In group, out group" morality as the apes have. We kill each other because of their different views on life or because their are different. Apes kill some outsiders. But one thing that chimpanzees do, is that they eat their own kind. They may kill an enemy of their own race and then they will eat them , scientist still don't fully understand why, but it could be because they need the proteins (and they don't have the same morals as we do, though some morals are very smiliar.).

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Wiggin on November 3, 2011 at 6:15pm

Cannibalism is very common in humans historically, in isolated groups, and even in isolated cases in modern cities. Some of our culture's oldest stories are squarely against it - see Tantalus v. Pelops. Why would ancient authors have made a big deal of such things if they did not need to be discouraged?

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Permalink Reply by gillia tsai on November 5, 2011 at 9:32pm

I don't think we "came from" deer, monkeys, etc. but we're all animals all right. I don't think it's important to know where we came from but it's important what we are doing with ourselves now. We all (every living thing) are interdependent so let's live in peace and not take advantage of one another.

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Permalink Reply by Tonya Wynn on November 3, 2011 at 6:29pm

Speak in the positive, not te negative. Instead of offendin and puttng your audience on the offensive, teach them how awesome evolution. You can use the cow, by showing his ancestors the longhorns. Or prove how hippos are actually in the whale family and other weird facts (found in Richard Dawson's book on evolution).

I love evolution because it made lemonade out of lemons...what began with a quirk or even mistake in birth, could become an asset and evolve into a new type of creature. Evolution is also by choice of a mate's preference. Scientists in England now say that today's woman prefers a less-masculine man and is therefore contributing to the evolution of men. So in a few hundred years, if this trend preference of women continues, men could be less hairy, less bulky/big, less prone to violence...

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Wiggin on November 3, 2011 at 7:54pm

Ummm - cows were selectively bred by humans

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Permalink Reply by Jimmy Hilli on November 4, 2011 at 7:44am

I know, that is the whole point of the speech, to present how awesome evolution is and that it can contribute much more for you than religions ever could. Then I will show them a picture of a cow and nature, and then I will connect it with how we are all related and how beautiful the picture is, not because the cow is standing in nature, but because it is full of history. Nature is part of our origins and part of every other animals origin. Then I will show them that a lot of people just see the picture as pretty and nice, but they don't see what's behind it. They do not question it and ask WHY is it so beautiful? How did it all get there?

I will tell them that one of the most important life rules is to question EVERYTHING.

But I will also add the opinionated piece so they can see how my love for the world has contributed to me not believing in a god and my resentment towards religion.

And I don't want to just stand there and present facts of evolution, I want my speech to have some "Philosophical" values that can enlighten them into maybe gaining an interest of evolution and to start looking up things about the world, which would start to question the existence of a deity.

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Permalink Reply by Jim DePaulo on November 5, 2011 at 4:41pm

"I don't give a damn for other peoples opinion, I only care about the facts."

You could soften that statement with one of my favorites. “ Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own 'facts'”

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Permalink Reply by Jimmy Hilli on November 5, 2011 at 5:22pm

I know, it sounds a bit harsh, but the truth is the truth, and I am strongly against religion, sometimes it feels all the ambition I have to gain arguments against religion and gain more knowledge about how the universe works and religion is getting to my head.

Exactly, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I still don't care for it if it is not based on facts.