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To: Dominic Harr
The farmer sprays the field with a bug spray, and it seems to kill 80% of the bugs. The next year, tho, when he sprays, it only kills about 30% of the bugs. By the third year, the spray doesn't seem to affect the bugs hardly at all.

These types of phenomena are well documented. One group has been tracking one such example for years - pesticide resistant mosquitoes. They observe that amplification of the gene encoding the esterase enzyme was the primary adaptation to the chemical in the wild. An increase in esterase levels is observed in the flies with gene amplification events. Conversely there is no increase in esterase expression in the absence of these events. This type of genetic change (duplication) is very common in bacteria under selective pressure and has also been observed in many other organisms (including human cells). The human genome appears to be a large collection of duplicated gene clusters.

1,019 posted on 07/18/2002 10:49:45 PM PDT by RightWingNilla
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To: RightWingNilla
Am I wrong in thinking that this is a perfect example of natural selection? And it's an example that no one denies?

The ID and Creationsm believers agree this happens. They *believe* in Natural Selection.

Yet they try to draw a false line between 'little' changes (micro) and 'big' changes (macro). Then are forced to pretend that a bunch of small changes won't equal a big change.

Even tho that simple truth is evidenced in every single system you can observe.

So to whit, these folks *agree* with Darwin, but are upset at one particular application of the theory -- the "descent of man", so to speak.

Since their book says that one thing didn't happen, they try to discredit the entire theory. Even tho they believe in the theory.

This is a *fascinating* bit of human psychology.

1,023 posted on 07/19/2002 8:15:30 AM PDT by Dominic Harr
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