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To: annalex
annalex: "Yes. That is the belief -- in the superstitious sense.
No one has observed that, no one has reproduced that in a sufficiently complex species, no one has really explained how two birth defects on the same kind would occur in two specimens within the mating range, but we believe it anyway."

You're putting a lot of your own definitions into your words, "that" and "it", so I suspect your definitions have nothing to do with actual science.
And your allegation that science equates to "superstition" is baseless.

In reality, "descent with modifications" has been observed and confirmed innumerable times, making it a fact.
That is the method by which, since time immemorial, people have created new varieties / breeds of plants and animals, and by which "natural selection" over longer periods creates new breeds, subspecies and eventually species.

So both "decent with modifications" and "natural selection" have been observed and confirmed beyond dispute.
They are not "superstition", they are facts.
And since they are the two components of evolution, that makes evolution a fact.

Of course, folks such as yourself become all agitated over the alleged distinction between "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution".

Indeed, when I first began posting on FR evolution threads, most Creationists claimed that "micro-evolution" is acceptable theologically, but that "macro-evolution" is not.
These days, it seems that some posters claim even "micro-evolution" never happens.
To me that speaks of mankind's unlimited ability to close our eyes to reality.

I say that "micro" and "macro" evolution are the same things, simply extended over longer time periods.
What, after all, is the physical difference between a "race," a "variety", a "breed", a "sub-species" and "species"?
Is it not simply a matter of word definitions?
By scientific convention, we consider a "sub-species" to have become a new "species" when it can no longer breed with its parent populations.

Zebras, for example, have three species which do not interbreed in nature, but can sometimes be forced in captivity.
And each zebra species has subspecies which sometimes can and do interbreed, given the opportunity.
Point is: if it turned out that a certain "sub-species" could not interbreed with others of the same species, it would no longer be called a "sub-species", by convention we would call it a new species.

In nature, fossil records and DNA analyses show such changes typically take millions of years, but human directed breeding programs, especially of agricultural plants, have produced new varieties which can no longer fertilize their original species.
What these breeding programs demonstrate is that "micro-evolution" can happen very rapidly indeed, under the right conditions.

Point is: the "precise moment" when one sub-species in nature can no longer effectively interbreed with another, and so by our definitions becomes a new "species" -- that "precise moment" is no "moment" at all, it normally takes a very long time.

annalex: "Now, miracles happen.
That God can make it so two turkeys of the opposite sex would spontaneously mutate into bald eagles..."

Of course He could, and possibly that's just what He did.
But if that is what God did, He left no traces for us to admire scientifically His handiwork.
Indeed, just the opposite -- the evidence He left for scientists to examine clearly shows turkeys and bald eagles descending separately from common ancestors who lived many tens of millions of years ago.

And seriously, you have to ask yourself: if God didn't want us to accept science's theories, then why did He leave so much evidence laying around to support them?

;-)

118 posted on 05/16/2012 9:45:27 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: BroJoeK; St_Thomas_Aquinas
In reality, "descent with modifications" has been observed and confirmed innumerable times, making it a fact. That is the method by which, since time immemorial, people have created new varieties / breeds

This has a bearing on the unguided evolution hypothesis only if the definition species is artificially narrowed to breeds and varietals within the same real species. Yes, dogs and wolves, and -- I trust your word, breeds of zebras can produce healthy offspring. This does not prove evolution from one species to another such that when the evolution is done the second species no longer interbreeds at all with the first. The part I highlighted is the definition of the evolutionary theory I find no scientific proof of, only scientific dress-up of a superstition.

Microevolution -- the difficult but possible interbreeding inside several subspecies, -- does not prove the real thing. By the same logic I could "prove" to you that I can fly: I can indeed flap my hands and hop around. My hopping and flapping is not a first step of me becoming a bird. It may be a first step for me isolating myself and fellow hopper-flappers into a human colony that now has a difficulty interbreeding with the rest of humanity. That is all that the presence of breeds shows.

"It took a very long time" is not a proof of anything either , it is simply a storytelling device: "Long, long time ago there lived a unicorn..."

the evidence He left for scientists to examine clearly shows turkeys and bald eagles descending separately from common ancestors

No, He did not. The evidence is that there are two species, turkeys and eagles, and there was another species looking somewhat like both, that is now extinct. There is no evidence of "descending" of anything from anything.

120 posted on 05/16/2012 5:47:54 PM PDT by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
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