[microgood]

Perhaps you speak of someone else.

I was actually responding to the statment made in 411, where the argument seemed to be how dare you question all of us geniuses.

Much of the basis of creationism lies in a refusal to make extremely reasonable and straightforward inferences from 150 years worth of evidence for a thing creationists reject on doctrinaire religious grounds.

Now you are speaking of someone else. I think the fossil record shows an abundance of support for the idea of natural selection, but the random mutation is just inferred as a mechanism, and it seems that the rise of complexity and the large changes in structure seem to point to some other mechanism.

For example, the birds that Darwin studied were the beaks grew longer and were naturally selected, did that really happen randomly (which means a million other mutations must have happened in the same time frame that were detrimental), or did the mutation have a more direct feedback mechanism than just natural selection. The latter notion at least makes more sense. Having to depend on random mutation to get the right sequence for a changing environment seems a recipe for extinction. For all these species to get it right randomly seems a stretch.

[VadeRetro]

I was actually responding to the statment made in 411, where the argument seemed to be how dare you question all of us geniuses.

The reference in that post appears to be to the vast preponderance of opinion in science, particularly. It is an argument from authority, yes, but from the only relevant authority. When I defend evolution, I am careful to cite this body of authority and the literature it has produced, not my personal prestige as a renowned scientist or thinker, having neglected to become either.

The attackers of evolution must cite the opinions of the tiniest handful of crackpots, witch doctors, or their own refusal to know or understand. Nevertheless, we are to believe that there is an injustice in not given the attackers an equal voice. But where is their evidence? What is their theory? Their dislikes are not science. Their ignorance is not science.

Anyway, your response to that post remains a classic of hypocrisy. Criticize for lack of imagination, then argue from incredulity!

[VadeRetro]

For example, the birds that Darwin studied were the beaks grew longer and were naturally selected, did that really happen randomly (which means a million other mutations must have happened in the same time frame that were detrimental)...

Strawman. It doesn't mean that. Variability within a population is observed constantly in virtually every measurable trait of virtually every population. In sexual species, multiple alleles for common genes and the constant recombination thereof are a given. You are fixing a thing that isn't broke--supposedly "Nobody questions microevolution" etc. etc.--and have nothing definite to fix it with anyway.