Evidence for Evolution

[Count Comfect]

Lief - there was technological development in those years. As a specific example, there were HUGE leaps in stone tool technology, from things that look like you or I could go out back right now with no experience and make them to microblade that are smaller than my finger, as sharp as a razor, and can be chipped out of a single core stone by the dozens. Stone tool development doesn't sound all that impressive when you just hear the name, but it really does require a lot of effort and time to figure out progressively better methods for making those tools, because a lot of the changes are mental - like realizing that the flake rather than the core should be the tool.

As for animal migrations/environmental change, I think the canonical answer would not be "they migrated," but rather "their range already covered parts of the world outside of the Sahara or the Gobi, and while large numbers of the species died out, they were able to repopulate later from areas that were not subject to such drastic climate change." That is, you don't have 100% of the species in the Sahara, it overlaps with the Sahel or the North African coast, so when the Sahara goes dry the species survives in the other areas, to come back to the Sahara when it is habitable again.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by Spock

The jump between the existing stock (cro magnum (?) ) and Neanderthals has been a point of contention for alien intervention. The bilological jump is that great it can't be accounted for by 'evolution' alone.

..one good link on this: http://www.halexandria.org/dward816.htm

If I recall correctly, the Neanderthals and the Cro Magnon were two separate species (or sub-species, perhaps) who existed at the same time. The Neanderthals died out, and the Cro Magnon became the ancestors of Homo Sapiens, and us Homo Sapiens sapiens. (I apologize to Linnaeus for abusing the Latin names in this post.)

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

And thats because they are so closely related to us of course.

Agreed. My point is that it has been way over 100,000 years since we were at that low level of intelligence, but according to modern theory, in all that time we advanced beyond them in only the most miniscule ways.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Lief we live in a world today where there are STILL small collections of humans that live like we lived tens of thousands of years ago. Extremely primitive. And you have a wide range of technologies in different societies across the globe. Shouldnt they all be uniform according to your logic?

Of course not. People can think of different things at different times and different speeds. Humans aren't all the same and some cultures have a greater emphasis upon technological development than others. For example, cultures that are highly secluded from others often feel less pressure to develop new ideas than do cultures that are frequently coming into contact with other groups. This isn't a constant. All humans are curious. However, there is room for variation in the species. Some peoples may develop writing while other peoples elsewhere develop something else, more applicable to their specific needs. Other times, they won't develop anything for a long time. But we're still talking about only a few thousand years, here. Nothing like tens of thousands of years, or hundreds of thousands (if we take into account that the ancestor species to humans were of close to human-like intelligence).

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

I didn't say they lived like apes. I thought I'd said quite clearly that they lived like humans. However, language, communications and technology were so different that we wouldn't recognise it.

I'd say the reason we can't recognize the technology advances is because they aren't there. Communications, of course we can't really tell. We weren't amongst them. We don't know how they talked, though we can guess (the current guess is they made clicking noises with their tongues to converse). For technology advances, there really aren't nearly as much as one would expect to see from 100,000 years of human existence, not to mention the lack of technological growth in the species prior to us, but with near human intelligence.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Lief - there was technological development in those years. As a specific example, there were HUGE leaps in stone tool technology, from things that look like you or I could go out back right now with no experience and make them to microblade that are smaller than my finger, as sharp as a razor, and can be chipped out of a single core stone by the dozens. Stone tool development doesn't sound all that impressive when you just hear the name, but it really does require a lot of effort and time to figure out progressively better methods for making those tools, because a lot of the changes are mental - like realizing that the flake rather than the core should be the tool.

The same thing is said about the arrow head, that the Indians of North America refined it for thousands of years. However, there are counter examples of startling human ingenuity, such as the invention of the Republic by the Iroquois, done completely without instruction from Europe. Sumer, the earliest recorded civilization, was highly advanced in mathematics and writing.

I need to do more research though, to see what else I can find. Especially about the small secluded tribes Insidious brought up. If I can find many more startling inventions from separate peoples like the Iroquois' Republic, I may be able to express my point more effectively. I am tired and strapped for time though, so I expect it will be a long time before I can get around to such research .

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

As for animal migrations/environmental change, I think the canonical answer would not be "they migrated," but rather "their range already covered parts of the world outside of the Sahara or the Gobi, and while large numbers of the species died out, they were able to repopulate later from areas that were not subject to such drastic climate change." That is, you don't have 100% of the species in the Sahara, it overlaps with the Sahel or the North African coast, so when the Sahara goes dry the species survives in the other areas, to come back to the Sahara when it is habitable again.

That's a very interesting perspective. When I was debating with Cirdan on this matter, he said that probably some migrated and many died out. As you say though, there would be some overlap. This doesn't touch on my point much, however. My point is that when we can see these massive and swift environmental changes, what are we to suppose? That we are seeing a great abnormality in nature, or its regular pattern?

Look at how swiftly trees and all the surrounding plantlife come back after lightning starts a forest fire. Look at how swiftly islands can come into being. Look at how seeds, when planted, can swiftly cover landscapes in foliage.

I think there is ample evidence that we have an extremely swiftly changing environment, on the whole. Much of evolutionary theory is based upon slow changes taking place as creatures adjust to the slow environmental changes. As environmental changes are not slow, however, evolution would have to be fast as well, if it were to match environment. Else there is no point to evolution. If creatures can migrate to escape any change in nature, there is no need for them to evolve to cope with environment.

I believe as you do, however. Many cannot migrate. Many die. I think also that many evolve, however. You see, I'm of the opinion that evolution may well occur, but if it does, it has to be faster than supposed. The environment is fast, so if evolution is to have any connection to the environment at all, the creatures would have to evolve quickly too.

Evolution by natural selection also usually is thought to occur over long periods of time. Herbivores feel the disadvantage they are under because of carnivores, and they evolve to cope with the threat. The carnivores must change by evolving still keener weaponry, or ability to get the prey. The herbivore must evolve again, to be either faster, or better camouflaged, something like that.

The difficulty with this is that if the environment is changing extremely rapidly everywhere and creatures are migrating all over the place, they will be coming into contact with a large variety of predators. They won't be able to find strategies that deal with all of them.

My idea that evolution takes place more swiftly than previously believed would answer this dilemma too. If the animals can evolve swiftly to cope with our swiftly changing environment, they won't have to scamper around the globe to survive. Neither will they have to cope with hundreds of different species of predators, many of which have different strategies of hunting and varying talents and abililities. If creatures can evolve more swiftly in response to these millenial drastic changes, all this migration may not be necessary. Neither would it be necessary for the animals to deal with hundreds of different predators from different continents. They can deal with the same ones.

I think everything takes place faster than supposed. The evidence concerning the environment's speed really is a serious road-bump in the modern version of the theory of evolution. As BeardofPants once told me, "the key to evolution is gradualism." If gradualism is taken away, evolution is in trouble. I think the modern evidence concerning the environment is really stripping gradualism away, but I am not convinced that this means the Theory of Evolution is completely incorrect at all. I think evolution may well have occurred, but if so, it had to be much more swiftly. Humans also would have evolved more swiftly, and this makes sense. The technology gap for our first hundred thousand years of existence is very large. I've heard scientists also argue that the population growth is not nearly what we would expect. Population levels should have risen far faster than they have, according to these people. I used to argue for them, but then I realized that I didn't understand what they were saying, so I've stopped . I might research it again though, sometime.

There are certainly evidences supporting a slower evolution. I do question some of our commonly used dating techniques, however, and I know that many, many other Christians do. I think a faster evolution fits better several of the things we can now see. The visible speed of environmental change really does seem to be a bad hitch in current evolutionary theory.

Well, I am totally wiped out now. Totally fatigued. It's nearly 10:00 PM, and I had a big day today, and have a big one before me tomorrow as well. Forgive me if these most recent two posts seem weak or incoherent. I don't have time to research for this round of debate, and as I write I am quite exhausted. I'll see if I can do better for you another time .

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I'd say the reason we can't recognize the technology advances is because they aren't there. Communications, of course we can't really tell. We weren't amongst them. We don't know how they talked, though we can guess (the current guess is they made clicking noises with their tongues to converse). For technology advances, there really aren't nearly as much as one would expect to see from 100,000 years of human existence, not to mention the lack of technological growth in the species prior to us, but with near human intelligence.

I don't agree (surprise, surprise!). Consider the Dark Ages: technology in Europe went backwards for about 1,000 years after the Romans.

Technological advancement, as we would recognise it, cannot happen without a fairly large-scale, stable and organised society. It needs mass communications, trade, writing, organised education, lots of leisure time, etc. We are too easily seduced by the idea of a technology being on a deterministic forwards path.

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I know that many would argue, "before they had agriculture, they had to devote almost all their time to work. Before they developed fire, a vast number of other technologies were inaccessible."

These arguments don't ring true to me, however. Take my father, for example. He spends almost the entire week day at work. He works very hard at what he does, and when he comes back he only has about three to four hours at most. Much of this he spends with his family. However, he also spends a corner of it to focus upon pet projects. He likes to research, form theories about nature and the solar system, seek truth using mathematics and various books. He continues to tutor himself, to train his mind even despite his near incessant daily work.

Let's remember that before agriculture, people didn't specialize - they were basically all into hunting and gathering. Most knowledge that was passed down to younger generation most likely had to do with how you make a good spear and what fruits are edible. Other things, like seeking truth using mathematics, didn't help the humans much and didn't increase their chances of survival, so I believe new ideas that didn't involve hunting, gathering etc. were quickly forgotten. And unlike your father, they didn't have books to read

After the ice age, there was a sudden change in the lives of the hunter-gatherers' way of life. They had to travel longer distances for food and had to work much harder, which eventually lead to agriculture - a much easier way to get food in this new climate. In turn, agriculture lead to an excess of food, which lead to specialization (the farmers could support those who didn't farm), which lead to new professions, new ideas and new technology.

The point I'm trying to make is that it was pretty darn hard to make any technological progress before agriculture got into the picture and that if the aftermath of the ice age hadn't pretty much forced us to start farming, perhaps we'd still be hunter-gatherers today.

On the topic of the theory of evolution, in which natural selection is a vital part, the farmers devoted some of their time to refining of their crops, by "human selection" if you like. The people gave rise to new breeds of plants and also animals (cows, dogs etc.). The line between a race and a species can be thin and there is no real definition of what constitutes a species. Anyway, if we humans can make new breeds, then surely nature is powerful enough to make new species - see there is no proof whatsoever of a hindrance between going from a new breed to a new species.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

You know how large the Sahara and Gobi desert stretches are, correct? That's no mean "bit" of migration, if it was migration. It is massive scale, and doubtless involving numerous extinctions. It's also a change that happened at least three separate times in the last 120,000 years. That's an amazingly rapidly fluctuating environment, wouldn't you say?

"rapidly" is subjective, and 120,000 years 25x our recorded existance... but i've kind of lost your original point here for bringing it up... i didn't think that you even believed the earth was more than 6,000 years old

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Technologies build on each other, there's no doubt about that. However, that's just my point. According to what we currently know, for tens of thousands of years, there was no new technology building upon the old. All of humanity was content with its immensely difficult life and never sought to improve itself in any noticable way. That's not humanity. That's apes.

sure there was, you see evidence of things like more effective arrowheads... it's the exponential nature i was talking about... the advances from 1900 to 2000 dwarf the advances from 0 to 1900... no reason to believe the same isn't true comparing the last 2,000 years of human existance to the prior 40,000

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I'm not convinced that this covers the difference between raptors. (Frowns) Well, I'll have to research.

a good illustrated map of earth's geological past (and future!)

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

I don't agree (surprise, surprise!). Consider the Dark Ages: technology in Europe went backwards for about 1,000 years after the Romans.

It came back swiftly enough, however.

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Technological advancement, as we would recognise it, cannot happen without a fairly large-scale, stable and organised society. It needs mass communications, trade, writing, organised education, lots of leisure time, etc. We are too easily seduced by the idea of a technology being on a deterministic forwards path.

What are you talking about? Mass communications, trade, writing and organized education are innovations and technologies themselves.

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Let's remember that before agriculture, people didn't specialize - they were basically all into hunting and gathering. Most knowledge that was passed down to younger generation most likely had to do with how you make a good spear and what fruits are edible. Other things, like seeking truth using mathematics, didn't help the humans much and didn't increase their chances of survival, so I believe new ideas that didn't involve hunting, gathering etc. were quickly forgotten. And unlike your father, they didn't have books to read

Well, sure. They would use those resources they have available. My father's research about space and history does not help him at all though, in his work. It's something entirely stimulated by curiosity, and used to satisfy a curiosity bug. Many scientists think that way and are enthusiastic enough to study for the subject's sake, rather than to put food in their mouths.

People in the past would have had the same bug, and approximately the same amount of time available as my father has to satisfy it. Of course they couldn't come to the same kinds of dramatic discoveries and conclusions. There were methods and tools available to them.

Originally Posted by Jonathan

After the ice age, there was a sudden change in the lives of the hunter-gatherers' way of life. They had to travel longer distances for food and had to work much harder, which eventually lead to agriculture - a much easier way to get food in this new climate. In turn, agriculture lead to an excess of food, which lead to specialization (the farmers could support those who didn't farm), which lead to new professions, new ideas and new technology.

I'm aware of how the theory goes, but I find it highly implausible. If you can only spend one hour a week studying and learning about the world around you, that adds up to an astronomical amount of time. I don't believe that the hunter-gather schedule didn't permit them any leisure time, do you? They still had time to make cave paintings, to have sex, to fashion new tools, to chatter with friends (though obviously not on anywhere near the same level as modern cell phone conversations ). Some time too can be spent for discovery.

Originally Posted by Jonathan

The line between a race and a species can be thin and there is no real definition of what constitutes a species. Anyway, if we humans can make new breeds, then surely nature is powerful enough to make new species - see there is no proof whatsoever of a hindrance between going from a new breed to a new species.

I'm not arguing right now that the theory of evolution is altogether off track. I'm just saying that the dates are off. There's a lot of debate that can be gotten into on modern dating methods. The modern theory says that evolution must have occurred slowly, over long periods of time, in response to slow (over millions of years) changes in climate and environment. Modern evidence suggests that the environment doesn't move at all slowly, however. This thrusts problems into the theory of evolution that I think can be effectively resolved by saying animals can evolve faster than expected.

However, that mine is also just a theory. I am sure however that there are problems with the current version of the Theory of Evolution. A good look at the recent history of massive scale environmental changes (those that took place before humans could influence things, I'm talking about) clonks the ToE's idea of slow changing environment on the head and, IMO, knocks it out cold . If evolution happened, it would have had to happen very quickly. I think we might even now be underestimating nature, when we say that creatures cannot evolve quickly to cope with stressful environmental changes.

I'm not talking about changes that take place in a couple of months here, but of changes that take place over a thousand years. I think that given that much time, evolution may be able to take a hold and help creatures to adapt.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

"rapidly" is subjective, and 120,000 years 25x our recorded existance... but i've kind of lost your original point here for bringing it up... i didn't think that you even believed the earth was more than 6,000 years old

Oh, this is too good . People are always complaining about how Creationists try to validate their theory by attacking the ToE. Now people are defending the ToE by attacking Creationism! This really is too amusing .

No, I don't think the Earth is certainly 6,000 years old. Perhaps it's 5 billion. I can go on for a while about how I explain the scripture, "7 days," and I think it's quite a reasonable explanation. In brief, it's plain the Genesis account was given to someone as a word from the Lord. The humans weren't even created until the sixth day, so they couldn't have seen it all themselves. If it came as a word from the Lord, it may well have been a vision. The vision of Revelation, at the end of the Bible, is just packed with the word seven. There are seven lampstands (the churches), seven crowns, monsters with seven heads, etc. Seven is a highly symbolic number. Revelation was a vision at the end of the Bible. That the Bible should begin with another vision makes sense. It shows the past and shows the future, and then it shows all between that is most important for us to know. That the Genesis vision should have had a strong symbolic use of the number seven fits well with the rest of the Bible. I think the seven might be referring to seven major periods of creation (or as on the last day, lack thereof). That is indicated by what happened on each day. Some major change or new divine innovation. But the symbolic use of the word seven in the rest of the scripture, and the likelihood that the first part of Genesis was revealed in a vision, strongly connects with the Biblical message and Christian tradition. Some visions aren't meant to be taken completely literally. When Jesus talked about the seven lampstands in Revelation, he was not talking about seven physical lampstands .

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

sure there was, you see evidence of things like more effective arrowheads... it's the exponential nature i was talking about... the advances from 1900 to 2000 dwarf the advances from 0 to 1900... no reason to believe the same isn't true comparing the last 2,000 years of human existance to the prior 40,000

It advanced awfully slowly, in my opinion, considering the thousands and thousands of years given to its development.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Oh, this is too good . People are always complaining about how Creationists try to validate their theory by attacking the ToE. Now people are defending the ToE by attacking Creationism! This really is too amusing .

No, I don't think the Earth is certainly 6,000 years old.

i didn't mean it as an attack... i just get confused with the differing opinions on "creationism" here (i was thinking rian and tr, i guess)

a bit off topic ~ this is why i try to avoid labels like "creationist" or "evolutionist"

some creationists believe the universe is 6,000 years old

some creationists believe it is much older (as you do), but "life" is not

some scientists believe in the big bang and evolution, but still think god "created" the initial state... so they are, in a sense, "creationists" too

i think every poster should put their definition of "creationism" in their sig

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

It advanced awfully slowly, in my opinion, considering the thousands and thousands of years given to its development.

another example would be some of the isolated tribes that still exist to this day in the world... who, other than the ocassional disney t-shirt from a tourist, live much as we expected mankind did 10,000 years ago... why have they not progressed over so much time?

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I am sure however that there are problems with the current version of the Theory of Evolution. A good look at the recent history of massive scale environmental changes (those that took place before humans could influence things, I'm talking about) clonks the ToE's idea of slow changing environment on the head and, IMO, knocks it out cold . If evolution happened, it would have had to happen very quickly. I think we might even now be underestimating nature, when we say that creatures cannot evolve quickly to cope with stressful environmental changes.

Evolution takes leaps. It works slowly without the pressure of natural selection and it works quick during rapid changes in the environment and climate. During long periods of time life might not change much, only to explode with new species during other periods. It isn't black and white - evolution works slowly and rapidly. This is what the current theory looks like, so I don't see how the theory is knocked out cold Lief

All known "sharp" evolutionary leaps seem to have come in intervals and they have also coincided with paleontological eras.


[edit] Lief, your question about how humans could live as hunters and gatherers during these vast periods of time with hardly any technological progress at all, is a good question. However I think the fact that there are tribes that have lived a hunter-gatherer's life until this day, that is many thousands of years, is a good evidence that it is possible for humans not to develop new technologies .
Though I guess it is possible that the tribes might have invented interesting stuff in the past, only that throughout the generations they've reverted to the hunter-gatherers used to be.

[rohirrim TR]

the main problem with this whole debate is that evolution and creation are both unscientific, neither can be observed anywhere in the physical world. all we are arguing really is ideas that scientists have come up with, the evolutionist that believes all of the evolutionary ideas that are being espoused has just as much faith (or more) as a christian who believes that it was created.

[rohirrim TR]

[QUOTE=brownjenkins]i didn't mean it as an attack... i just get confused with the differing opinions on "creationism" here (i was thinking rian and tr, i guess)[/QOUTE]
am i being catagorized now?

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

another example would be some of the isolated tribes that still exist to this day in the world... who, other than the ocassional disney t-shirt from a tourist, live much as we expected mankind did 10,000 years ago... why have they not progressed over so much time?

Insidious Rex already brought this up and I responded to it then.

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Evolution takes leaps. It works slowly without the pressure of natural selection and it works quick during rapid changes in the environment and climate. During long periods of time life might not change much, only to explode with new species during other periods. It isn't black and white - evolution works slowly and rapidly. This is what the current theory looks like, so I don't see how the theory is knocked out cold Lief

All known "sharp" evolutionary leaps seem to have come in intervals and they have also coincided with paleontological eras.

I didn't mean that the entire theory of evolution is knocked out cold. That aspect of it that relies upon a slowly changing environment is clobbered. This is because we can see from the past hundred thousand years that the environment really changes very rapidly.

When you say, "species can evolve slowly or rapidly," how rapidly do you mean? Could they concievably adjust to a climate change from grassland to desert in the space of a thousand years?

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by rohirrim TR

the main problem with this whole debate is that evolution and creation are both unscientific, neither can be observed anywhere in the physical world. all we are arguing really is ideas that scientists have come up with, the evolutionist that believes all of the evolutionary ideas that are being espoused has just as much faith (or more) as a christian who believes that it was created.

One doesn't have to see it to believe it- otherwise we couldn't believe in subatomic particles. We can come to conclusions based upon available evidence. Neither evolution nor creationism is 100% based upon faith. Evolution relies upon various forms of evidence that are discovered through research and analysis. Creationism relies upon various areas of evidence too. These go from the philosophical ("How can something come out of nothing?") to the textual (the Bible paints a highly accurate picture of Earth's early history, including references to Pangea, the dinosaurs, and possibly even evolution in response to environment: "the land created the creatures according to their kinds"), and even to the physical (I haven't studied intently the numerous scientific creationist websites, but they certainly have various evidences and research about natural phenomenon which suggest a creation period around 5,000 to 6,000 years ago.

Creationism and Evolution both rely upon evidence of one kind or another. Both also have an element of faith involved, however, it is true.

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

When you say, "species can evolve slowly or rapidly," how rapidly do you mean? Could they concievably adjust to a climate change from grassland to desert in the space of a thousand years?

The evolution of new species is still rather slow, that is it probably takes several thousands years for a new species to see the daylight. From a human's point of view, evolution seems to take forever. However some species evolve remarkably fast when compared to others.

As to your other question - yes, an animal can adapt to a completely new environment in a few thousand years. It doesn't have to evolve into an entirely different species to do that though - changing into a new race would suffice.

Think of mammoths and elephants. Same species (I think) but they adapted to the different areas they lived in. I don't know how long the elephant-like animals have been around - it can't have been that many millions of years - still they had time to adapt. If the mammoth had been given some more time, they might have evolved into a species separate from the elephant.

Think of lions in Africa and lynxes in the arctic. Cat-like animals can't have been around that long either but they've adapted as well to the areas they live in. Keep the cats separated and in a few hundred thousand years they might have to be considered two separate species.

So I'm saying it again - life adapts remarkably quick to new environments through natural selection, maybe in just a few thousand years. However they don't have to turn into new species to do that.

[Spock]

-------------------------------
Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity".

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by rohirrim TR

the main problem with this whole debate is that evolution and creation are both unscientific, neither can be observed anywhere in the physical world.

Of course evolution can be observed in the "physical" world. Weve only given many many examples of exactly how.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

The evolution of new species is still rather slow, that is it probably takes several thousands years for a new species to see the daylight. From a human's point of view, evolution seems to take forever. However some species evolve remarkably fast when compared to others.

As to your other question - yes, an animal can adapt to a completely new environment in a few thousand years. It doesn't have to evolve into an entirely different species to do that though - changing into a new race would suffice.

Yes, but we're talking about grasslands and forests to deserts, a transformation that takes place all in about one or two thousand years, at most. The Sahara-Gobi desert stretches seem to have hip-hopped back and forth between fertility and aridity at least three times (I think it was four) in the last 120,000 years. That's very heavy and very fast. I think evolution would have to move very quickly to keep up with that. I also think it may well be capable of it though. The idea that climate and environment have been stable for periods of millions of years though seems totally unrealistic when compared to recent evidence.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Of course not. People can think of different things at different times and different speeds. Humans aren't all the same and some cultures have a greater emphasis upon technological development than others. For example, cultures that are highly secluded from others often feel less pressure to develop new ideas than do cultures that are frequently coming into contact with other groups. This isn't a constant. All humans are curious. However, there is room for variation in the species. Some peoples may develop writing while other peoples elsewhere develop something else, more applicable to their specific needs. Other times, they won't develop anything for a long time. But we're still talking about only a few thousand years, here. Nothing like tens of thousands of years, or hundreds of thousands (if we take into account that the ancestor species to humans were of close to human-like intelligence).

i found it!

i bolded the last part, 'cause it's an assumption that may be unfounded

we say that they were very close to today's humans due to things like brain cavity size... and in some rare and more recent cases, dna fragments... but this doesn't mean that they had the capability to be as intelligent as we are

today's monkeys use tools much like early man (of millions of years back) were thought to use... and those monkeys have existed just as long as we have, yet have not advanced in intelligence any further (or much, one would assume)

for a long period of time it appears that mankind developed a slight edge, fashioning rough stone tools and eventually (about 12,000 years ago) shaping naturally-occurring metals (copper)... but this does not mean they had the intellectual capacity to go any further... it may be that as recent as 5-10,000 years ago that mankind developed the intelligence (in terms of physical brain makeup) to achieve some of the things we did in more recent history

intelligence is not an on/off switch... we see many animals, monkeys in particular, that show rudimentary intelligence and it may be that it just took that long for a more advanced capacity to evolve in humans

[rohirrim TR]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

One doesn't have to see it to believe it- otherwise we couldn't believe in subatomic particles. We can come to conclusions based upon available evidence. Neither evolution nor creationism is 100% based upon faith. Evolution relies upon various forms of evidence that are discovered through research and analysis. Creationism relies upon various areas of evidence too. These go from the philosophical ("How can something come out of nothing?") to the textual (the Bible paints a highly accurate picture of Earth's early history, including references to Pangea, the dinosaurs, and possibly even evolution in response to environment: "the land created the creatures according to their kinds"), and even to the physical (I haven't studied intently the numerous scientific creationist websites, but they certainly have various evidences and research about natural phenomenon which suggest a creation period around 5,000 to 6,000 years ago.

Creationism and Evolution both rely upon evidence of one kind or another. Both also have an element of faith involved, however, it is true.

i'm not saying that there is no evidence for either side, for we know there is evidence (in fact all we have is "evidence") we just have no conclusive proof for either theory.