[RobRoy]

>>"We may have to fundamentally change the way we view evolution," says Professor of Botany Doug Soltis. <<

Oh,no! NOT AGAIN!



Heh, heh. The more we know, the more we know we don't know. Any guesses how complex life REALLY is and how many eons you have to throw at it to get even the simplest DNA strand to "evolve."

[NJ_gent]

"Any guesses how complex life REALLY is and how many eons you have to throw at it to get even the simplest DNA strand to "evolve.""

I'd say about 20 minutes, actually. Get together a petri dish loaded with bacteria, then toss in some sort of toxin. Heck, throw in some anti-bacterial Lysol. With 99% of the bacteria dead, natural selection leaves only those fit for the new environment, which now includes Lysol. Now, close to 100% of the next generation of bacteria are immune to the toxin. Why did the 1% survive the initial introduction of the toxin? Slight genetic variations caused by random mutations allowed for a small portion to have a pre-existing immunity, which is then quite likely to be passed on to the next generation. Hence, your petri dish population looks radically different over the course of mere minutes.

The nice thing about bacteria is that they reproduce so quickly. That makes it pretty easy to test simple logical conclusions based on the basic parts of the ToE. As for the theory changing once again, I'm rather happy to hear it. With something as complex as the origins of species, it's rather absurd to think we'd nail it down with a simple explaination in a couple hundred years. The introduction of new thoughts and ideas leads us closer to truth, so long as nothing is taken for granted.