So you agree with the Theory of Evolution then, good.
That depends on whether you mean "microevolution" or ASBE (All Species By Evolution) -- Remember, there are two kinds of evolution - that which I have seen and that which I have not seen. As an honest scientist, I have to stop and say "Wait, I'm not going to posit and argue as fact that which I have not seen and do not in fact know to be true."
Why do you think that small changes over a long period of time can't add up to large changes?
Remember, just because something could be doesn't mean that it is be! It's faulty logic to argue that something must be simply because it could be. And I have yet to find any proof that it could be and certainly none that it did! From what I can tell, the fossil record is severely lacking compared to the millions of generations it'd take to reach our current stage. Furthermore, I find the evidence lacking for the event of life from none life, and the same goes for the idea of matter from nothing. The "missing link" fossils we do have don't look to me to be anything that couldn't be caused by genetic drift within kinds. Think of even the size ranges of dogs from the pouch pooch (pocket pooch) to the great dane. Look at the size ranges from the tiny miniature horse to the draft horse. Based on skull size, you could argue that the biggest dog was the granddaddy of the smallest horse. I realize there are more dimensions to the equation then size, but I'm hoping you get my point -- within any kind there is enough variation in size and shape that with careful sorting, ordering, and maybe a few deformed freak of nature specimens, one could make a skull lineup not unlike our "Chimps to humans" lineup (Remember - those 17 or so skull fragments stuck onto fixall?) even if there was absolutely no relation between the different species. Remember, if I gave you a bucket full of randomly sized and colored marbles, you could sort subsets of them to show any relationship between size and color you liked, even though as a whole there was no relationship.
So you believe in evolution within a species.
As I said, I grew up watching generation after generation of livestock. The new generation rarely even looked identical (since we weren't into purebreeds) to their parents!
How about evolution within a Genus or Family? Would you agree that is possible?
Our current understanding of DNA tells us that with different configurations of DNA, any strange creature could be created. So if there were the correct bits of information added to the DNA then evolution to a more advanced creature sure would be possible. But remember, just because something is possible does not make it true, and secondly, I don't know that nature causes the right kind of new information to be added to the DNA, so I'm not even sure that in reality such a thing (evolution from one family to another) is even possible to begin with. I should also point out that the Family and Genus classification system is based upon and oriented towards ASBE (All Species By Evolution) and it already has a built in answer to the question - like the old joke "Have you stopped beating your wife?" - I prefer to work in a different classification system which says that God created the different kinds, and what we have today are descendants of those, and so if two animals both descended from the same original kind, then they are the same kind. This too has a built in assumption - that there were distinct kinds. And I do realize that it may be hard to tell now if two species are the same kind (based on my definition of kind.) Furthermore, this is based on my faith (like your classification is based on yours, except I'm honest about there being a distinct element of faith involved.) Except that my experience and observation is that today only distinct kinds exist so in that sense, if I just talk about the observed fact that a finite number of distinct kinds exist today then I can discuss it purely scientifically without inferring a faith.
Where do you draw the line?
If I've seen a certain degree or kind of evolution, then I say it's true. If I haven't seen it and it makes claims which I find far out and unsupported, then I say it probably aint true and it hasn't been proven.
So you do believe in evolution? Why the debate?
"Evolution" just means change. As I said, I believe in that which I have seen. Why the debate? Because you (and all ASBE'rs) draw a conclusion that goes far beyond the evidence in hand.
It's like the scientists which took a bullfrog and said "Jump, frog, Jump!" and the frog jumped 4 feet. So they hypothesized that its legs were how it jumped, so they cut one off and said "Jump, frog, Jump!" and it jumped 3 feet. So they cut off another leg and said "Jump frog jump" and it jumped 2 feet. Then they cut off another leg and said "Jump frog Jump" and the poor thing jumped 1 foot. Then they cut off the last one, and said "Jump frog Jump!" and it just sat their. Then they wrote up their conclusion: "We found that the frog's number of legs does relate to how far he can jump, but that a frog with no legs goes deaf."
The debate is because it looks to me as if the conclusion being drawn goes faaaaaar beyond the supporting data and extrapolates dreadfully, and makes claims which I do not find supported, like the millions of missing links. It's not missing links, the whole chain is missing! And many things I observe around me just do not line up with the ASBE theory. Furthermore, I well know that many people accept ASBE on pure faith: Just talk to the average person on the street who believes in ASBE. I think you will find that they aren't at all well learned on all the facts of the topic, but none the less they believe it with all their heart, and they take it by faith. Again furthermore, the theory of BigBang+Abiogenesis+ASBE provides a freedom from morality.
So what I see are masses of people believing in a theory that works towards giving them freedom to do whatever they think they can get away with - all the while accepting the theory by faith without proof. How do I know that the scientists don't also take it by faith and preach it as true? Oh, I should trust them? I've already had
Soliton saying basically that it's okay to lie in order to keep our society from collapsing. (Go look. He said he didn't like about DNA and stuff. I said "I hope you don't lie about other things" and he said "Our society would collapse if we never lied.") and then he
says "... our society, little lies make it work." Examples were given of the likes of "What if your wife asks 'does this dress make me look fat'" - in which case the lie's goal is to get one out of a bind by lying. So what's the difference between a big and bad lie and a little and OK lie? Whether one can get away with it! In other words the need to lie is because one is in a bind and the truth would cause some misery, and it's okay to lie because it can be gotten away with!
Now let's tie this all together. Back to my point as to whether I ought to just blindly trust the "scientists" as the masses due regarding the validity of ASBE. I already know that many people are overly willing to believe in ASBE without knowing any evidence for it. I also already know that at least some people supporting this idea believe it's okay to lie as long as they can get away with it. How can I know that the scientists and professors are telling the truth? What if they know they can get away with less then the truth? I have heard of several professors who feel it is their duty in life to shatter any remaining belief in God from the minds of their students.
How can I come to any conclusion other then that believing in ASBE because somebody - even a large number of somebodies - say so, is an act of faith in somebody I have no reason to trust about something I've never seen?
And even in our own conversations you made the
claim that the gravitational(which is the actual) angle of the sun in the sky is about 2.1 degrees ahead of its optical apparent position due to the fact that the earth rotates about 2.1 degrees in the 8.3 minutes it takes the suns light to reach the earth, for an observer on the earth. But then you refuse to admit that you're wrong, and you refuse to provide a single supporting document or link, and you refuse to answer the same question about Pluto, which at part of its orbit will be so far away that the earth will turn about 102 degrees in the time it takes light from Pluto to reach the earth. According to your theory of 2.1 for the sun, Pluto wouldn't even be in the night sky by the time one cold see it overhead! So I have personally observed people believing in ASBE by faith alone, in people saying that lying is okay in some situations (which from what I can tell, are the situations where they can get away with it), and then I've seen people who pass themselves off as scientifically learned supporting crazy ideas and refusing to admit it when they must know that they are wrong. Imagine how much more a wrong idea could be argued for if one knew that there were thousands of other professors all arguing for the same thing!, I have to realize that things are in a bad state in the science classroom.
So genetic drift within a kind is not proof of ASBE, and so most creationists and IDer's do not claim that genetic drift does not happen, and your argument is a strawman.
-Jesse
Hmm, would it be fair to say that you agree that genes can and do change within species and that your basic problem with TOE is that it doesn’t have much proof to demonstrate massive changes, like say between a fly and an elephant? And that TOE (theory of evolution) does not explain the origin of life? I will assume that is a correct assessment of your position.
First of all you are correct, TOE proponents cannot prove their theory. No theory can be proven, they can only be falsified. All you have to do to disprove TOE is provide some evidence that disproves common ancestry or shows that mutations don’t occur. Simple : )
Second, TOE simply does not explain how life was created. It merely provides clues, much like the expanding universe provides clues of how the universe was born. Similarly, the theory of relativity doesn’t provide answers to the creation of the universe but it does provide clues.
Now on to your real problem. You want proof that little genetic changes add up to big changes over time. There is no proof. You are correct that even fossil records that show dramatic differences (like between a bull dog and a whippet) don’t necessarily demonstrate a species change.
So what does evolution have, it has clues and evidence and some of the evidence is lack of evidence (much like the dogs not barking in the Hounds of the Baskervilles).
We now accept that spontaneous generation doesn’t have much evidence to support it, even though TOE requires it for the creation of life. We do know that offspring require parents and that we are made of of cells and that cells multiply by division. By inference that means that all living things should go back to a single common ancestor. Right now the evidence is good that all life goes back to at least three common ancestors, Prokaryotes, Eukaryotes, and Viruses.
Genetically tracing everything back to those three basic precursors is relatively easy. Also genetic comparison testing is easy and genetic testing shows our close relatives from our immediate family to our cousins the primates to monkeys etc. all the way down the taxonomic ranks. The genes show where the separations occurred between species, genus, families etc. That fact directly contradicts the Bible, in essence it falsifies it.
Genetic tracing was entirely unknown at the time the TOE was being created and yet it supports TOE without exception. Now it is relatively easy to compare genes and see how closely related any living thing is. As techniques improve, accurate dating of when classes diverged will also become easy.
The real interesting thing is that the genetic record is accurate and it shows how small changes over time become big differences. There is less than a 2% difference between our DNA and a Chimpanzee’s. That indicates that we had a common ancestor in the not too distant past. Even now scientists are comparing DNA from the quagga, horse and zebra to see when the lines diverged. There is a very small genetic difference between those three species who clearly had a common ancestor, probably the quagga.
My question to you is this. Do you have any evidence at all that small changes don’t over time add up to large differences? That should actually be easier to show than the reverse.