RE: Evolution, religion, and ignorance.
May 12, 2014 at 4:33 pm
(This post was last modified: May 12, 2014 at 4:38 pm by Mister Agenda.)
(May 11, 2014 at 2:22 pm)RDK Wrote: Animals that adapt to their environment over time is something that every creature has the ability to do. The unusual types and varieties of animals isolated on an island for many years shows that happening. This should be called adaptation, not evolution. Even though the appearance and habits of a group of particular animals can change over time if isolated long enough, they don't change into a different type of mating species.
Did you know that biogeographers can estimate with a high degree of accuracy the number of unique species that will be on an island just knowing the size of the island, how far it is from the nearest continent and large islands, and how long it's been isolated from the mainland? Why do you suppose that last one is important?
(May 11, 2014 at 2:22 pm)RDK Wrote: If one particular animal did experience a sleight change genetically, it could not mate with any of it's family to carry on the variation.
Nonsense. All animals are slightly genetically different from their parents and siblings. You couldn't reproduce if your statement were true.
(May 11, 2014 at 2:22 pm)RDK Wrote: The genetic similarity of animals excludes any but minor changes to the animal over time. Any changes that alter the animals ability to mate will exclude that change for future generations.
First, 'alter' is too broad a term for what you mean. 'Alter' could include changes that make it more likely that reproduction will occur, like higher sperm count.
(May 11, 2014 at 2:22 pm)RDK Wrote: That animal will not find a compatible mate.
The changes involved in evolution are never so great as to preclude breeding with members of your own species. That is one of the things that gets an organism deleted from the process of evolution.
Every species is the same species as the one before it and the one after it. Very few species are the same species as the ten thousandth generation before it or the ten thousandth generation after it.
It might help to think of each species as a frame in a motion picture. If you look at each frame one at a time, you have to look at a LOT of frames in order to be able to see the changes that are taking place.
(May 11, 2014 at 2:40 pm)RDK Wrote: Populations of organisms do not change collectively, but individually. One animal will be born with a minor change to it's body that can be passed on genetically to it's children. These adaptive changes brought on by environmental conditions can't alter it's ability to mate or the change will not continue onward.
This part is true.
(May 11, 2014 at 2:22 pm)RDK Wrote: The species doesn't change, only it's form and/or function.
This part is not. The species rarely (there are some cases of very rapid speciation) changes significantly in only a few generations. They change very gradually over many, many generations, each generation perfectly capable of interbreeding with each other.
And there comes a point where form and/or function have changed sufficiently to warrant considering the current species a different one from its remote ancestors.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.