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To: Sovek

Mmm, Sovek, would you care to state what the theory of evolution says? (without going and looking it up now, please; that would be deceit because you just said you don't believe it so you must know what it is)


12 posted on 01/12/2005 8:14:20 AM PST by Thatcherite (Conservative and Biblical Literalist are not synonymous)
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To: Thatcherite
Mmm, Sovek, would you care to state what the theory of evolution says?
After he's done exposing his ignorance about which he says he 'doesn't believe', send him here for some edification:

The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin

Gotta love the 'net, where even the torch-wielding pitchfork-thrusting Neanderthals can be shown the 'source documents' in an argument ...

BONUS - here's the opening paragraph from the preface.

I WILL here give a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species.

Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand, have believed that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are the descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms. Passing over allusions to the subject in the classical writers,* the first author who in modern times has treated it in a scientific spirit was Buffon.

But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as he does not enter on the causes * Aristotle, in his 'Physicae Auscultationes' (lib. 2, cap. 8, s. 2), after remarking that rain does not fall in order to make the corn grow, any more than it falls to spoil the farmer's corn when threshed out of doors, applies the same argument to organization: and adds (as translated by Mr Clair Grece, who first pointed out the passage to me), 'So what hinders the different parts [of the body] from having this merely accidental relation in nature? as the teeth, for example, grow by necessity, the front ones sharp, adapted for dividing, and the grinders flat, and serviceable for masticating the food; since they were not made for the sake of this, but it was the result of accident.

And in like manner as to the other parts in which there appears to exist an adaptation to an end. Wheresoever, therefore, all things together (that is all the parts of one whole) happened like as if they were made for the sake of something, these were preserved, having been appropriately constituted by an internal spontaneity, and whatsoever things were not thus constituted, perished, and still perish. or means of the transformation of species, I need not here enter on details.


175 posted on 01/12/2005 12:52:30 PM PST by _Jim ( <--- Ann C. and Rush L. speak on gutless Liberals (RealAudio files))
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