Posted on 11/04/2005 5:00:06 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Random selection? Random selection? What the heck is random selection?
It IS an interesting choice of words. All through Genesi 1 it's "Let there be.." Sometimes it's followed by, "and it was so" and sometimes it's followed by "God made" or "God created". I don't know Hebrew so don't understand the distinction between the words. It seems that sometimes He spoke and it happened and other times He was active in creating.
I always understood that it was the universe that was created Ex nihilo, not man.
Mutation itself isn't truly random. It occurs more frequently in some parts of the genome than in others. More pseudo-random than strictly random.
I believe you are missing the point of what I said. There are definite cases where evolutionary theory has had success in its explanatory power and been tested empirically. There is plenty we still don't know - the scientific response to these situations is "we don't know". We search for naturalistic explanations because there is no way to test for non-naturalistic explanations.
The problem with ID is that there is no way to empirically tell the difference between an "irreducibly complex" mechanism and a mechanism that evolved naturally but we have no idea how yet. Many mechanisms that were once believed to be irreducibly complex (i.e. the vertebrate eye) now have very feasible evolutionary explanations. This does not mean that ID is wrong (it impossible to prove ID wrong), but it does mean that it isn't science.
The search for undiscovered naturalistic explanations is not an exercise in faith, it is merely an exercise of the scientific method and realization of the limits of science.
Yep thats what I was taught.
The Big Bang theory certainly seems to lend credence to that view.
You might want to check with Coyoteman about this, as he is a resident bones expert, but I believe the fossil record supports birds first, then mammals.
(Coyoteman pinged as a courtesy since I mentioned his name)
"But I am still waiting for scientists to offer a mechanism for spontaneous generation. "
Keep waiting. I predict that your wait will end within 20 years.
My point is that God has told us about creation and many of us insist on making up our own stories.
A quick google shows:
The first mammals appeared about 265 million years ago, a mere 10 million years after the first dinosaurs
Archaeopteryx is considered by many to be the first bird, being of about 150 million years of age
what do you mean by "random selection"?
I am familiar with random mutation, and environmental (and other) selective pressures - which are not entirely unpatterened - but not "random selection"
I don't believe I have ever seen "random selection" described by an evolutionary scientist, geneticist, or biologist as part of the process of heritance and speciation.
please, by all means, explain: what exactly do you believe "random selection" means?
"My point is that God has told us about creation and many of us insist on making up our own stories."
Which god would that be? Every religion has creation stories involving deities.
But but but but but but but the Earth is only 6000 years old......
/sarcasm off/
"I always understood that it was the universe that was created Ex nihilo, not man.
The Big Bang theory certainly seems to lend credence to that view."
Yes and the Catholic priest who proposed it was accused of injecting religion into science.
Snakes are indeed a fragile specimen when it comes to preserving their skeletons. They have no prominent skeletal system beyond the vertebra. Their ribs are very delicate. And as their skulls are held together by muscles and ligaments, which is what allows it to be flexible enough to allow the snake to swallow its prey whole, they tend to fall apart rapidly upon death. This certainly means a frustratingly patchy fossil record of their ancestry.
However, enough is known from the snake fossils that do exist to give a good idea of their general development. A good summary of this can be found here.
The exact lineage of the earliest snakes is a subject of debate. However, a common point among possible theories is that they originally evolved either directly from early lizards or shared a close common ancestor to them. Some features of living snakes, such as boas and pythons, strongly support this; the boa's anal spurs and trace remnants of hips and limbs, for instance.
"Snakes are indeed a fragile specimen when it comes to preserving their skeletons. "
He was once an itty bitty glob of clay
GUMBY!
You should see what Gumby can do today
GUMBY!
If you have a heart then Gumby's a part of you
Of you......
GUMBY!
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