'Round and 'round we go!
So you are not aware of macroevolution and microevolution? Surely, with the knowledge you seem to have on the subject, you know the differences. Microevolution I can deal with, that's easy to accept. I can understand species changing over time to adapt to their environments. But at the end of it all, I cat is still a cat, dog still a dog, fish still a fish, plant still a plant, bacteria still bacteria. Their characteristics can change over time to adapt to the environment.. but the species is still the same. Different breeds result from separations of populations, but they are still in the same species.
Macroevolution is what I just can't accept. The theory that over time different animals will mutate so much so that it can create a different species, a completely animal.
To the science of biology there is no difference. Macro/Micro evolution are terms used by creationists to attempt to argue against the evidence of evolution. As I stated in my previous post. Evolution is adaptation! Species are labels given to organisms by man.
A good analogy would be the spectum of visible light. White light (all life) contains all the colors (species). The number of colors is in fact infinite. It's one contiuous gradual change from red all the way through to violet. You can try to name all the colors, for example, Orange and Green, but inbetween those two colors you will find another color which we named Yellow. Now if you look between Yellow and Green you will find yet another color which has been named, Lime. You can then look between Lime and Green and find Lime Green, and so on and so on until you get tired of naming colors that look almost entirely the same as the last two.
It's the same when you're trying to classify life forms. There is infinite and gradual variation from one to the next. You can try to label the first million or so you find with names, but inevitably if you look back through the family tree of any of them you'll come across something that you want to call something else. The point is each stage in the gradual process of change exists wheter you call it something the same as the last one or something different. The point at which the name change is made is defined by humans. Just like the colors in my previous analogy.
So with this in mind, I ask you this, if there is a meaningful boundary between, what you call macro and micro evolution, how does a lifeform know that it shouldn't evolve anymore because it's just about to cross that boundary? It doesn't know, because in reality, there is no true boundary between species, only in your mind do such boundaries exist. I don't think any animal that has ever lived has had the ability to read the collective minds of human civilisation. Picture a proto-Giraffe saying to itself, nope can't have a baby with a longer neck, because JBDrifter would consider it to be too long a neck and a different species.
Ridicule aside, it doesn't know because the process of evolution is always the same, random genetic mutation, produces variety, selection pressures kill off the variations that are detrimental to the survival of a lifeform, leaving only lifeforms more suited to thier current environment. This is Evolution by Natural Selection.
I won't for one second believe that we all originated from bacteria, which then turned into a fish, which then grew legs and lived on land, which then turned into a monkey, which then turned into human beings. It is a ridiculous claim, and it is a theory. It has not been proven. We have not observed it, and obviously we have not had enough time to test it yet.
Whilst we are on the subject of Giraffes I would like to tell you a little something about a nerve you have in your body. It is called the
Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve, in short it runs from your brain to your voicebox. But it does so by a very strage path, it dives down into your chest loops around your aortic arch near your heart and then back up to your voicebox.
The reason it does this is because the voicebox in mammals has evolved from one of the six sets of gills in fish, and the gills are tied into the circulatory system of a fish, helping to supply oxygen to the body of the fish in question. Therefor the voicebox still retains evidence of it's origins in it's association with the aorta and heart.
Now, let's look at a Giraffe, guess what! It has a
Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve too and instead of travelling a few inches from the brain of the Giraffe to it's voicebox, it takes a massive detour of 40 feet in an adult Giraffe to loop around the aortic arch near the heart of the Giraffe and then back again to the voicebox.
If God had designed the Giraffe from the "clean slate of a new species" don't you think he would have given it a much shorter
Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve one a few inches long instead of one 40 feet in length?
The reason that we, and Giraffe's have this similarity in our nervous system structure is because we both evolved from a common ancestor.
The evidence is fact! Stop denying the proof! Stop deluding yourself!
Now just quickly.. going back to your point about populations seperating then not being able to breed when brought back together... do you have any examples? I'm genuinely asking this out of curiousity, I really want to know.
Recently there has been news of Grolar Bears being bred. Grolar Bears being the result of Polar Bears and Grizzly Bears mating. I think this is a good example of what you were talking, yet is destroys the theory, and has been amazing scientists recently. Polar Bears and Grizzly Bears were the result of one breed of bears being seperated, as you said into two popluations. Each population adapted to their environments and over time became two very distinct breeds, yet they are still both part of the Bear family, still the same species. It was, and has been believed for a very long time that the two breeds were unable to mate, although lately there have been reports of the two different breeds mating and having offspring... which are being dubbed "Grolar Bears". Now this is news that I have been hearing of lately and I found it very interesting, but I have not really looked too far into it. I'm about to get into bed and go to sleep, so I'm not going to look it up now, but I think it is something that you may also find very interesting.
So Polar Bears and Grizzly bears can mate. This just means that their populations have never really been separated. And if you look it up you will find this to be true. There has been insufficient time and/or separation of the two. They still share enough of the same genetic code to produce viable offspring. Just like for example, black humans and white humans, have never truely been separated. They are variations of the same species that haven't varied enough to be unable to produce offspring.
Another example of this would be Horses and Donkies, they are a little further apart genetically than your bear example, but they can still mate. When they do mate their offspring are almost always sterile. They can not continue the line.
The next step is the inability to produce offspring at all.
If you have any other examples though, like I said, please show me... I would love to read up on them. Although of course that still wouldn't be proof of one species turning into a completely different one. Even if it was true that polar bears were unable to mate with grizzly bears, well they're both still bears. Their fur changed colour, one grew bigger and stronger, but they both still have the exact same attributes and belong to the same family.
I really am starting to get sick and tired of saying the same thing in different ways. Open your eyes. Go and read about molecular biology and the mountains of DNA data showing how the tree of life is structured. Visit museums, view fossils and living exhibts. Go to the Zoo. Go to your local fish store. I've provided some of these suggestions already and you have ignored them.
If you must, try and approach it from a slightly different angle. Divorce yourself from the whole idea that I am arguing against the existance of God.
Let yourself see the granduer of what human scientific endeavour has uncovered through centuries of maticulous study. Sit back and say to yourself, "****! This is better than we thought, God must be so much better than we give him credit for. The universe is so much larger, life so much more complex and miraculous". But NO!! I doubt you will.
Why is it that religous people don't do that? I'll tell you why, because their minds are closed! They have been led astray by the erraneous teachings of a corrupt and power hungry social structure that makes them "feel good" in some kind of warped reversion to childhood. And don't get me started on what religious organisations do to
actual children. Lying to them and refusing to provide facts and evidence that lead to the real truth is nothing short of CHILD ABUSE.
In short your beliefs are your beliefs, don't try to push them onto others without adequate proof to back them up. It's simply bad form! This is central to the whole debate over religion, science provides the methodolgy to uncover real facts about our existance, religion provides a shelter from the cold harsh reality, and does so without a single shread of verifiable evidence.
In closing I ask this question:- "If there is a god and I am created in his image, then presumably he/she endowed me with eyes to see with, ears to hear with, hands to touch with, and a brain for rational thinking. After having gone to all this trouble, why would he ask me to forsake them?"
L8r
