[Rippin]

Then why no "controversy" about geology, stellar dynamics, plate techtonics, or nuclear decay? After all, one person in one lifetime cannot observe stars forming, rock layers forming, continents moving from one place to another or the decay of half of a sample of radioactive material whose half life is greater than 100 years or so. Why is evolution singled out on this basis?

To the average bear, if you can observe a continent moving 1 inch in year and you project that it moved 5 million inches in 5 million years it is viewed as a straight line projection.

If the average bear sees dirt layed down in a rainstorm over an existing soil he can see a layer form in one day. It is easy for him to believe that more and harder layers could be formed over millions of years.

But if you see the frequency of peppered moths increase in a population and project that the exact same process (evolution) turned mollusks into men he just doesn't see the straight line. Thus he says he wants more evidence, he wants to see something similar.

Note my only point here is to try to clarify that the line between peppered moth 'evolution' and vertibrate from sea slime evolution is not completely arbitrary. I can't prove macro-evolution didn't happen but I'm trying to make the case that differentiation between macro and micro evolution is not completely arbitrary.

[stremba]

So if the average bear can observe that DNA base pairs change at the rate of say a few hundred per generation on average, why can't he make the same straight line extrapolation to lead to the several million pairs difference seen between closely related species? It's exactly the same thing, with the exception that religious beliefs have led to the notion that there's some mysterious barrier preventing small changes to one species from leading to a new species. Once a new species has formed, then what's the barrier preventing it from changing and forming yet another species, and so on. The various species of life form a continuum. Maybe the average bear can't see this, but that's just because the entire continuum is not alive today; most of the species forming the continuum are extinct. The small changes observed in living organisms are not any different than the small changes in position of the continents or the small layers of dirt that are laid down in a rainstorm. The fact that the average person doesn't see this is irrelevant. The evidence is out there.