RE: Having Fun With Evolution!
December 20, 2014 at 9:33 am
(This post was last modified: December 20, 2014 at 9:37 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Quote: Well, my studies have taught me that the core of Darwin's THEORY (not fact) has been that, given enough time, one species can turn into another species. Supposedly, Darwin believed that the fossil records would eventually determine whether or not he was correct.
Darwin had a hypothesis about birds which, upon investigation, led him to offer a theory about life in general (but he also retracted that theory in the face of ridicule, so there's that..lol). His contribution to the current theory was natural selection. He demonstrated that it -did- work by means of dog and bird breeds common and familiar to his audience (as breeders of pets and hobby animals...all the rage at the time). It was evident, efficacious, and explanatory from that demonstration alone. Whatever else may go into life...that one example was enough to show that natural selection went into life. Since then, that particular portion of the current theory has become one of the most well established, widely demonstrated, and..frankly...chronicly misinterpreted portions of the most successful scientific theory in recent memory. So successful that Modern Synth is the unifying theory of biology.
The bit about species is a quirk of our classification system and it's point in deep time. We could use lower rungs than species (to which "sub-species" attests). To say that animals evolve is not to say that "one species can turn into another" because species isn;t some intrinsic characteristic of an animal..it;s a characteristic of our classification system. Animals change - sometimes they no longer qualify for the same spot in our system....they are still everything that they were, the additional bits (or sometimes just reproductive isolation) rule them out. It is also not to say that dogs can evolve into cats, or cats into dogs - no matter how much time they are given. Cats will always be cats, whatever else they become, dogs will always be dogs, whatever else they become.
I don't think you studied anything about darwin or evolution...., btw.
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