Do you consider the australopithocine a “half assed chimp” or a “poorly designed human”; or do you view it as a upright ape that lived for over a million years over a large part of Africa as a perfectly complete unto itself biological species? The latter is certainly the biological view.
You claimed that “micro” changes could not become “macro” changes due to viability, but obviously there is nothing unviable about either end of the spectrum or any variation in between.
My own daughter's college text for biology and science majors had 4 or 5 pages in a book that was 3 inches thick. Having read every word with her, I **testify** that macro-evolution plays even a minor role in **biology** itself!!!
Actually, all I know about macro-evolution is contained on those FOUR or FIVE **pages** of my daughter's college text! Apparently the esteemed researcher who wrote the text for biology majors felt that was quiet enough space for the topic. FOUR or FIVE **pages**. ( with plenty of room for colorful illustrations, of course)
So???.....If it is of such little importance to working scientists and health professionals and to **biologists** even, why is this being pushed so hard in the high schools? I conclude that is for non-neutral political, cultural, and religious reasons.
We must end the cat fights!
Solution: Begin the privatization of universal K-12 education.
Some parents want a godless and materialist worldview taught in their children's schools and that's OK with me.
I would like traditional science taught to my children but within the framework of a God-centered worldview. I believe many would join me in feeling this way.
Some parents want creationism. I don't agree with them,,,but,,that's OK! Few need to know about or use macro-evolution in their daily lives and work. If their kids really want to go on to take serious science major's biology they can take a course at the community college to fill in the few gaps.
The problem here is government force. Government has the police power to **force** citizens to pay for schools that offend their cultural, political, and ( atheistic or God-centered ) religious worldview. Naturally there are bullying, shoving, and pushing as each tries to be King of the Mountain of government money and power.
Get government out of education and most of these evolution squabbles will melt like snow on a balmy spring day!
There is no transition that is a “half assed bird” or a “poorly designed iguana” in the variability between a human and a chimp.
Riiiight, we just need ga-jillions of years to see this.
Meanwhile:
As a chemist, the most fascinating issue for me revolves around the origin of life. Before life began, there was no biology, only chemistry – and chemistry is the same for all time. What works (or not) today, worked (or not) back in the beginning. So, our ideas about what happened on Earth prior to the emergence of life are eminently testable in the lab. And what we have seen thus far when the reactions are left unguided as they would be in the natural world is not much. Indeed, the decomposition reactions and competing reactions out distance the synthetic reactions by far. It is only when an intelligent agent (such as a scientist or graduate student) intervenes and “tweaks” the reactions conditions “just right” do we see any progress at all, and even then it is still quite limited and very far from where we need to get. Thus, it is the very chemistry that speaks of a need for something more than just time and chance. And whether that be simply a highly specified set of initial conditions (fine-tuning) or some form of continual guidance until life ultimately emerges is still unknown. But what we do know is the random chemical reactions are both woefully insufficient and are often working against the pathways needed to succeed. For these reasons I have serious doubts about whether the current Darwinian paradigm will ever make additional progress in this area.
Edward Peltzer
Ph.D. Oceanography, University of California, San Diego (Scripps Institute)
Associate Editor, Marine Chemistry
www.dissentfromdarwin.org
One need not be an evolutionist to understand how the theory is so full of holes.