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To: johnnyb_61820
"This is actually the result of breeding experimentation for tens of centuries. There _are_ observable species boundaries."

Your evidence for this is that in the relative blink of an eye that we've been watching, we haven't seen an enormous change in a single species. The ToE says that it's highly unlikely you would. Elephants don't hatch from spider eggs. The so-called boundaries haven't been tested over any significant length of time, nor have they been tested under controlled conditions which would simulate the conditions optimal for faster divergent evolution.

"Also, the lines between species isn't always clear. I think there are cases where breeding can still occur between genera. Classification isn't all its cracked up to be."

There are rare cases of members of different species producing viable offspring (lions and tigers, for instance), but that just goes to show that mother nature is far more intricate and fascinating than our boring classification system would like her to be.

"A progressive fossil record is the evidence, showing change through time. This is not equivalent with proof for evolution."

It most certainly isn't. Sitting here for a few million years would provide the proof necessary to discount or finally accept the ToE. I've got some spare time, but not that much.

"Creationism allows for"

It allows for anything under the sun. In fact, Creationism inherently explains each and every possible scenario, regardless of how bizarre or how unexpected it may be, with the words, "that's how God wanted it".

In other words, there's not a shred of science involved.

"Darwin's view on this was simply that nature both causes and allows more change than breeding. However, this is pretty much just conjecture."

Not at all - Darwin never said that breeding couldn't bring about the same kinds of changes as the normal evolutionary process. One should note, however, that to obtain the truly remarkable results we have today with a modern-day creature, one would have to spend a few million more years of breeding under the right environmental conditions while allowing natural selection to do its deed.
602 posted on 11/29/2004 4:20:15 PM PST by NJ_gent (Conservatism begins at home. Security begins at the border. Please, someone, secure our borders.)
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To: NJ_gent

"Your evidence for this is that in the relative blink of an eye that we've been watching, we haven't seen an enormous change in a single species."

Actually it's that we _can_ breed significant changes (even as far as speciation), but that there are limits.

"There are rare cases of members of different species producing viable offspring (lions and tigers, for instance), but that just goes to show that mother nature is far more intricate and fascinating than our boring classification system would like her to be."

That's what I said.

"It most certainly isn't. Sitting here for a few million years would provide the proof necessary to discount or finally accept the ToE. I've got some spare time, but not that much."

Exactly true. Evolution _requires_ a lot of proof which we don't have. Saying that because we can't gather the necessary proof, we don't need to is rediculous.

"It allows for anything under the sun. In fact, Creationism inherently explains each and every possible scenario, regardless of how bizarre or how unexpected it may be, with the words, "that's how God wanted it"."

The same is true for evolution. It accomodates fast changes, slow changes, changes which increase complexity, changes which reduce complexity, changes which help, changes which harm. It's impossible to come up with a scenario that would truly falsify evolution, because no matter what you come up with, evolutionists will say, "that's shows how amazing evolution is".

"Not at all - Darwin never said that breeding couldn't bring about the same kinds of changes as the normal evolutionary process."

Here's what Darwin said: "With species in a state of nature, it can hardly be maintained that the law [of compensation] is of universal application." The law of compensation is the observed fact that breeding holds limits. Darwin argued that a "state of nature" could break the law of compensation that breeders have been unable to cross.

Also remember that Darwin allowed for an initial species, or even _several_ initial species to be present for which natural selection to work on. If several, while not several thousand, or several million? The doctrine of special creation is not that God created every species that is extant today, but that He created "kinds" which are the ancestors of modern species. As mentioned by many others, the origin of life is not of particular concern to evolution, so the only disagreement appears to be of the question "are there limits to change?" Neither party has observed the past to know whether change has limits, so both are really pure speculation from a scientific standpoint. Science has not observed boundless change, and the fossil record does not support universal gradualism.


726 posted on 11/30/2004 4:40:37 AM PST by johnnyb_61820
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