Replies

When attempting to understand evolution and evolutionists, I get very hung up on the "betweens" that do not exist in nature (or the fossil record, as far as I know.)

I've highlighted the key phrase in your above statement...

It's also instructive to note that the most popular creationist "missing links" of years gone by have all actually been subsequently found (whales with legs, snakes with legs, multiple intermediate stages of bird evolution, etc.) If you're still "hung up on" the few cases you can desperately grasp for which haven't yet been found, instead of getting a clue from the many that *have* been found in accordance with the predictions of evolutionary biology (and in violation of the predictions of the *creationists*), well, that's *your* personal problem.

The other day I was watching the hummingbirds after the cardinal flowers. The blur of the wings, the angling balance of the tail, the hovering, the fearlessness of humans, moving backwards and downwards like a helicopter...no other bird can do these things. No other bird is so small, or burns so much fuel. So, where's the "in between " bird and hummingbird--? For such differences to emerge, you'd need several "missing links."

And there are. Happy now? Or will you just blythley blow that one off and then grasp for *another* possible "gap" you can cling to?

It's this logical problem that I don't hear addressed, or the question I always ask--how do you evolve an immune system while you're busy trying to evolve a beating heart?

By evolving one before the other. Many organisms survive just fine with one and not the other. Where did you get the erroneous impression that they are somehow "required" to both be present for survival?

And eyes, and the skin...

See above. Same answer. Try to learn some biology before you attempt to critique it.

the computer-hormone chemical system that makes an organism's organs all "talk" to one another?

One stage at a time, of course. Evolution proceeds by building on what came before. Your lack of imagination is not a restriction upon nature's possibilities.

And don't you always need a Mrs. to go with your newly-evolved Mr. Species?

Sigh... You have not one, but *two* extremely elementary misconceptions in your question.

First, *populations* evolve, not individuals.

Second, "newly evolved species" do not arise *poof* in one generation. They are the result of multiple mutations accumulating in a population across *many* generations, until eventually the whole breeding population has acquired the new set of mutations. Any one of the mutations individually is neither large enough to "make" a new species by itself, nor create a barrier to interbreeding.

This is Evolutionary Biology 101. Go buy a book or something.

Why hasn't centuries of breeding livestock, in geographic isolation, not produced a new species of something?

It has.

If it happens so readily by accident, why can't it be reproduced on purpose?

It has.

I did study some biology, and believe that it is really impossible to study life without using the "tree of life" theory as a paradigm to illustrate the interrelatedness of organisms.

Apparently *not*, since you seem to misunderstand the subject so badly, and can't even get the most basic things about it correct.

And the "scientists" themselves use language dogmatic, patronizing and unscientific.

...only in response to know-nothings who attempt to "lecture" the scientists about their own field of study, and "disprove" it using stuff from clueless creationist tracts instead of actual knowledge of the subject. Know anyone like that?

Hmm, you're sounding pretty "dogmatic, patronizing and unscientific" yourself.

They don't speak in terms of "best reasonable explanation"--

Yes, they do.

but insist that you believe--

Horse manure. Feel free to believe any silly thing you want. What *will* get a scientist pretty testy, however, is when people who really haven't any clue what in the hell they're talking about attempt to "disprove" evolutionary biology loudly and stridently, and spread complete falsehoods about the subject, and try to use the courts to force psuedoscience into classrooms, and...

Look, believe what you want, but when someone spouts lies or disinformation -- about evolution or any other subject -- they should rightly expect to get slammed for it.