Best description of Christianity

[Esquilax]

I'm Glad you had to jump in and open you mouth, I clearly stated

You do realize that one species of animal has never been observed to evolve into a completely different species

and by species, I mean from one animal into another, I consider frogs to belong to the same group. I suppose you forgot that I stated a while back that an animal can evolve from it's group, but a cat cant evolve into a dog. Dogs evolve from Dogs. In that sense I don't consider the frogs to be different species.

Here's the thing. I don't, you know, care about what you consider a species to be? You aren't actually the arbiter of what is and isn't allowed in the biological sciences, and your layman's, intuitive "this looks like this therefore same species," idea of what's what, concocted as it is entirely to serve your own argument and not due to any real understanding or research into the science, quite simply does not match with the established science.

In short, if your only response is to redefine the important words in the discussion, by fiat assertion alone, to mean whatever you need them to mean, then you've already lost. Don't think it escaped my notice that, while you were oh so quick to dismiss what I had to say, you didn't provide any details as to what you do consider a species to be other than "not what you said." You're insisting we play by your definitions- we aren't required to- and then keeping those definitions intentionally vague so that you can change them whenever you need to to keep disagreeing with us. It's the same argument we get from creationists all the time, except they invent their own term, "kinds," whereas you've just decided you have the right to change what species means to suit your ends. But the question I'm going to ask is the same: we're discussing science, so why should I be using your definitions over those of the scientific community that you definitely are not a part of?

I suppose I'd better include the quote or I'd be accused of "moving the goal posts"
http://atheistforums.org/thread-24368-po...#pid618632

Do you really think it's fair to ask us a question, and then expect us to remember the same vague, fiat definition you gave in a thread almost a year ago?

Ok, so let's examine "speciation" since you brought it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation

Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. The biologist Orator F. Cook was the first to coin the term 'speciation' for the splitting of lineages or "cladogenesis," as opposed to "anagenesis" or "phyletic evolution" occurring within lineages.[1][2][3] Whether genetic drift is a minor or major contributor to speciation is the subject matter of much ongoing discussion.

There are four geographic modes of speciation in nature, based on the extent to which speciating populations are isolated from one another: allopatric, peripatric, parapatric, and sympatric. Speciation may also be induced artificially, through animal husbandry, agriculture, or laboratory experiments.

So we see that speciation can induced artificially through animal husbandry.

As you well know, slavery was a part of Americas history where they bred people like animals in order to pass on "favorable traits", do you consider African-Americans to be a different species of human?

Do you understand the difference between "animal husbandry can lead to speciation," and "all animal husbandry leads to speciation"? I mean, do you get the distinction there?

Speciation events can occur due to artificial selection like animal husbandry, but not all instances of artificial selection lead directly to speciation. This is still a process that requires time for sufficient genetic change to accumulate; for example, it took a couple centuries at least for wolf domestication to lead to the evolution of the modern dog, and many more after that to lead up to all the different breeds that we have today. The practice of slavery simply did not last long enough, nor was the artificial selection therein widespread enough, to effect a speciation event. It's not our fault that you don't understand basic concepts in evolution, while you simultaneously disagree with it based on nothing.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it's impossible for someone to properly understand evolution, and still disagree with it. The only reason you have problems with this is because you don't understand it, and refuse to do research on anything more than things that will confirm your ideas that parts of it are wrong. You do remember that I brought up the speedy speciation of the Cope's Gray Treefrog as the exception, not the rule, right?

Esquilax posted a link about two similar frogs...
http://people.wcsu.edu/pinout/herpetolog...lation.htm

The gray treefrog and Cope's gray treefrog were once believed to be the same species.

that doesn't qualify as being an "entirely different species" under any definition.

They "were once" believed to be the same species, meaning that now they are considered separate species, after genetic research into them discovered the autopolyploidy that led to their speciation event.

To be clear, we've got the biologists and herpetologists on one side saying that it's a different species, and we've got some undereducated layman with an ideological axe to grind, saying they're the same species because kinds. Why on Earth do you think we should take your opinion seriously, over and above the trained conclusions of people who have dedicated their lives to studying this? Because you said so?