I know. It's a hypothetical.
But if it did, I would think that when it was written people called chickens cats:)
Non responsive. Let me put it another way: if the Bible makes a clear statement of fact that is absolutely contradicted by science--such as "all cats reproduce by laying eggs"--would you believe the Bible or the science?
I only posted it because I doubt you really thought I was a lawyer anyway. The so called academic elite in this country have sufficiently demonized and belittled evangelicals for so long that people now think we are idiots. I just post to say that there are plenty of smart people that subscribe to the THEORY of creation. I really don't care if people disagree with me. I just get tired of being talked down to like I am just a toothless brainless drone.
I don't think people who believe in creationism are necessarily idiots. (Some are, of course. Appallingly so, in fact.) But the fact that they're not idiots doesn't mean that the creationists are right.
Those creationist that aren't idiots, from what I can gather having read their words for many years, are ignorant of (or unreasonably deny) what the science of evolutionary biology actually is and what it actually says. They are also religiously motivated to remain ignorant in order to avoid the unpleasantness of having their core religious beliefs challenged. (In fact, some creationists are proud of this fact, asserting that they find strength in their ignorance in the subject.)
So, no, I don't believe you're an idiot; I just know you're wrong.
I have actually read up on the topic, and it is my OPINION that there is room for discussion on this topic without resorting to condescending personal attacks. As far as I know, evolution is still a theory, is it not?
Evolution is both a theory and a fact. It is a fact that populations of organisms have diversified and changed throughout the ages. (See, e.g., the law of faunal succession.) It is also a theory in the sense that the modern synthesis, often called neo-Darwinism, explains the manner in which that diversity of life arose.
And, of course, the theory of evolution will always remain a theory because there is nothing higher in science than a theory. (And, in fact, the theory of evolution is one of the most well-established theories in all of science, with literally millions upon millions of data points supporting it.)
My pathologist friend was explaining to me some things about the human body that blew my mind the other day. He told me numerous examples of internal body parts that depend on one another. He said that there are so many things that cannot exist apart from another, that he could not begin to fathom how such distinct and complex organs could come into existence on their very own at all, let alone simultaneously. I was trying to follow him, and it was admittedly tough to keep up. I got the point he was making though.
This is the logical error known as the argument from personal incredulity. Just because your friend cannot fathom how these organs came into existence through evolution is no evidence that they did not. Other people have fathomed how they came about and the theory of evolution works just find in bringing these organs about. One book I would recommend you read on this particular subject is by Richard Dawkins, called, "Climbing Mount Improbable." In that book he shows how small, nominal evolutionary changes in organic structures can quickly (geologically speaking) results in fantastically complex organs.
He said that just one living cell occurring by chance is about as likely as a tornado hitting a scrap yard, and creating a 747 ready to take off. I'm not a scientist, but I know those are not good odds. Anyway, I am not throwing flame bait, just asking for your side to be a little less condescending. We are people too.
That is an old and quite discredited canard, although professional creationists are still fond of it. (Probably because they are either ignorant of its being rebutted or betting on the fact that their audiences will either not know or not care that it's been debunked.) Basically the answer lies in the gradual accumulation of small, minute changes, none of which is, in itself, implausible or even unlikely.
The analogy is false because evolution doesn't act like a hurricane. An analogy I've used is this: You see a cat in a second floor window. The creationist says that God must have personally put the cat there because everyone knows that the cat couldn't have jumped that high in a single leap, so there is no alternative but to invoke God. The evolutionist just points to the staircase.
Furthermore, this objection is always fascinating to me, because it invariably comes from Christians who believe in the existence of an omnipotent God. But, if this argument is so good and the existence of a 747 resulting from a hurricane in a junkyard is so laughably improbable, isn't it even more laughable and more improbable that an infinitely complex 747 (i.e., God) just happens to exist??
I agree with you that micro-evolution is a fact. But macro-evolution is an entirely different matter. Natural selection only selects from preexisting characteristics, it doesn't actually add on additional and previously nonexistent characteristics.
We are not going to convince one another however. And BTW, the cat story was funny, but it was a bit of an oversimplification. It was also condescending to say the least. But you don't seem capable of not talking down to people (or maybe it is just me). You must be a professor, or I am I just jaded from years of crawling through the sewage of institutions of "higher learning"?
Have a good day by the way.