[mlc9852]

You guys really excel at attempting to make those who disagree with you look stupid. I'm ignorant - oh, well. By the way, that isn't going to win you any converts.

[EasyBOven]

Well, will this win a convert today?

There is more evidence than fossils to show that speciation has occurred, which I think is the main debated point in the political / religious community. In general, there are four ways to determine the time since a species split: Fossils, Active DNA, Viral DNA fragments, and Mitochondrial DNA.

Viral DNA, to me, is the most interesting and compelling. I just found a good article on it here.

The gist of this finding and the argument here for speciation is this: Our bodies have really great systems in place for stopping viruses from reaching our reproductive cells, which stops the majority of retroviruses (a virus that inserts its own DNA into your strand) from getting through. Every so often, though, a retrovirus makes its way into the gene-pool, and inserts an easily recognizable fragment of DNA into the strand. It is recognizable because not only does it fail to perform a function, but it sits right in the middle of a gene that used to do something. Its an addition, not a mutation, so it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Well, it turns out that humans and chimps share a few (I forget the exact number, I think its about 10-11). By share, I mean that these fragments are clearly the same fragment and IN THE SAME PLACE in the gene they reside in. The infection would have had to occur at the same time, in other words, in the same ancestor. Now, mutations in humans and primates occur at the same rate, and the differences in these mutations between the human and chimp varieties indicate a time that matches up with the fossil evidence discovered by archaeologists, as well as Active DNA and Mitochondrial DNA.

If God did indeed design each species individually, and speciation is false, He would have had to plant this evidence so precisely with the express intention of fooling scientists into believing that evolution and speciation exist.

You can believe in a Deceiver God if you want. I refuse to.

[WildHorseCrash]

You guys really excel at attempting to make those who disagree with you look stupid. I'm ignorant - oh, well. By the way, that isn't going to win you any converts.

First, I never implied you were stupid (i.e., slow to learn or lacking intelligence), but merely ignorant (i.e., lacking knowledge). There is no shame in being ignorant; it simply describes the state of having a lack of knowledge. That can be remedied. There is no shame, that is, so long as one does not shut out the knowledge when it is provided. It is only at that point that ignorance becomes stupidity.

So if, in fact, you feel you look stupid, it is perhaps because you are rejecting knowledge that is provided to you. That is on you.

Oh, and I am not in the game of winning "converts." That's for religious hucksters and politicians. If someone wants to wallow in ignorance, practicing voluntary stupidity... what can I say, it's a free country; he can do what he wants.

[b_sharp]

"I'm ignorant - oh, well"

There is an easy fix - open that closed mind of yours, shake out the creationist cobwebs and learn how scientists determine where fossils fit in the hierarchy, rather than assuming nothing can be reliably learned from partial fossils.

[going hot]

You guys really excel at attempting to make those who disagree with you look stupid.

You are so much more succesful in doing that, why fix something that is not broken?

[furball4paws]

It's not possible to make a convertable out of a hard top, withour removing its head.

[muir_redwoods]

"You guys really excel at attempting to make those who disagree with you look stupid. I'm ignorant - oh, well. By the way, that isn't going to win you any converts."

Well, have you spent decades studying this field of research in both university and the fields where the digs take place? Have you written peer-reviewed papers on this subject? I haven't and somehow I don't feel qualified to sum up another man's life's work as a meaningles string of conjectures just because I don't understand all of the ins ond outs. We're all, each of us, ignorant about so much. It's true I don't know much about Christianity either but I thought humility was a big part of the virtue Christians aspired to.

Perhaps I'm wrong.