if you're interested in the story aspect, the creation of the creation myth, a very interesting take on it, is that of Daniel Quinn. Quinn wrote a series of novels based around the teaching's of Ishmael, a telepathic gorilla, whose perspective comes from outside human culture. While obviously written as books of fiction, Quinn's tale provides interesting insight as to how the beliefs mentioned in this thread came about.
This first section will be to dispel the 15 year old, i know everything about the world, anti-evolution, idiocy. This won't be for everyone, so
please skip down to the next bold section (the exciting part) if you understand that humans have been around for 4 to 5 million years , and that our particular species,
homo sapien sapien, 130,000 years. Now let's go over evolution 101 for those of you who need it. DNA is present in every part of the body, it is the code that spells out the recipee for you. You have the same DNA in the cells in your fingers as you do in the cells of your brain, and your stomach, and so on. When you reproduce, you hare giving away half your code of DNA; (each one of your sperm or eggs has only a part of the information to make you). When one gamete (a cell with a half set of DNA) meets its counterpart in the act of reproduction, a unique combination of half the man's DNA and half the woman's DNA make a unique complete set of DNA--a new person. Let us be clear for the slow people, each gamete is unique from all the other gametes, even within the same person. Each sperm or egg will combine to create a completely unique individual. We call these unique individuals brothers and sisters. They are similar, as they come from the same parents, but they are not identical, because the mother and the father have sperm and egg that varry from another, and the sperm and egg combine differently in each union of two gametes to a zygote (complete set of DNA). Now over time the whole population of brothers and sisters, spread out, and you have some individuals that live a little longer, find it easier to reproduce and reproduce more, while others struggle, don't find it easy to reproduce, and reproduce less. The more likely you are to pass along your DNA, the more power you have over the course of the species you belong to. (To further your knowledge and see a real example of how this process works, and how it is influced, read about the peppered moth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution )
You should never use the terms half evolved species, as it doesn't make sense. There are unsucessful species, which failed evolution, but you can compair them to relative species to understand where they came from, and could see how they are 'half evolved' in the sense that they share common features with an ancestor, and current living animal. There are also 'half evolved' species in the sense that they represent a transitionary species. See the Lung fish, which has the capability to breath under water with gills, and out of water with lungs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_Fish . There are both living and exticnt versions of creatures which give us clues to how the evolutionary process takes place.
As you should have seen with the peppered moth, evolution is still taking place today, but it is a slow process. However when you have a very large population, the ability for genetic change to take place is greatly reduced. If you're unable to understand this process, and have to ask why, if humans came from monkeys, do we still have monkeys around... give up, don't believe anything. It's not worth it. (The answer however would be that both modern day monkeys and humans share a common ancestor, and that you need to think of this like a faimly. If it's not confusing as to why you and your siblings are different from one another, and that you understand that you'd both come from the same mother and father, extend this to the evolutionary process, and realize it's just on the massive, grand scale.
ALRIGHT!! Welcome back... We're here for the fun part. The story of our creation, that of adam and eve, comes to us from the same time as the agricultural revolution. About 10,000 years ago, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers a bunch of humans decided that they wanted to begin farming. Not only did they want to farm, but they wanted to claim every bit of the land for the use of man. The term we will use for this is totalitarian-agriculture. It must be realized that Man had lived on this world for 4-5 million years already, hunting, gathering, being all monkey like, and that we, as Humans, as we understand ourselves to be, began perhaps 130,000 years ago, living lives like we might imagine the native americans living, or the bush men of austrialia living, or perhaps remote tribes in the amazon. There were a variety of life styles, agricultures, some that worked some that didn't. But it wasn't untill 10,000 years ago that one group of Humans begain to live a lifestyle where they toiled the earth, growing food only for themselves. Killing their competion, taking away their competitions food source, and denying competition the right to any food what so ever. Basically the battle for food became an all out war, rather than daily competion.
To use the terminology that Quinn uses in his book, the native american, indiginous, tribal peoples, that existed before the agricultural revolution, are known as the leavers, while the culture that practiced totalitarian controll of food and land is known as the takers. Let's begin tying the story of the takers and leavers into our creation story.
Now obviously the leavers can be best understood as typically hunter gatherers, or in a way thought as eating much like every other animal does. A wolf pack goes into the forest, and tries to chase down the deer. If the wolf is lucky, a deer is caught, and eaten, if the deer is lucky, the wolf goes hungry. This is living "under the hand of God", "by the Gods" and it can be said that only the Gods have knowledge of who can live and who can die. (note back to evolution, this is determined by your evolutionary advantages/disadvantages). This is a very easy life style, as nature works in through a path of least resistence.
When the Man takes a bite of the fruit of knowledge, he things he understands the law of who lives and who dies. Man thinks I can grow all this food, i can store it, and i can eat it every day, so when, unlike the wolf who isn't lucky to catch the deer goes hungry, man does not go hungry when he is unlucky and does not catch the deer. This sort of life style spread rapidly as it granted the populations the power to reproduce at a rate much higher than was allowed by the natural resources. When you have the power to reproduce in great numbers, you also have the ability to form great armies. You need great armies to be able to get more land, to grow more food, to support your unaturally large population. The eating of the fruit of knowledge provided us with a false understanding of how the world works, and we began to think that it was a good thing to grow all this food, and to not starve when we were unlucky. We freed ourselves from the Gods.
Now to supplement this false understanding of the way the world works, we also went through a period of mass forgetting. Once the totalitarian-agriculture took rule, we began this great forgetting. This was the period of time where we began the idea that man had come into the world as an agriculturalist. The idea that we toiled the land, and lived by the sweat of our brow became the standard story of our begining; When it is far from being true.
I hope i've given Quinn some justice, and recomend finding Ishmale, or the story of B to give you a clearer idea of what is being said. It is a truely revolutionary mind set, that seems very obvious when presented the way it is. If you are writing a report on this, perhaps using Quinn as a contemporary take on the orrigins of people would be quite fun.
