For ALL those who believe in Evolution.

That's just re-assigning names. It does not clarify the definition. I'll try again; what tools do you use to determine if a specific pair of organisms are the result of adaption, or speciation? It obviously isn't species per se, as you have ruled against certain examples given already.





I'd argue the opposite; the concept of "micro-evolution" is creation of a special case within the general theory of evolution. It is the creation of a definition by which a stair is possible but stairs are not, a paving stone is possible but a road is not, a strand is possible but a rope is not.




Of course. Religious belief should be independent of scientific inquiry. What makes many scientists and laypeople suspicious, however, is that no good scientific argument has been made against evolution or for an alternative; and furthermore, those who argue most strenuously that there must be, by some co-incidence happen to have strong religious beliefs.

It's a bit like an oncologist finding no link between tobacco smoking and cancer, then discovering they are a shareholder in R.J. Reynolds.

But even more, it is like said oncologist claiming there are deep flaws in all studies showing such a link, and there are further studies showing that smoking actually prevents lung cancers -- but somehow they are unable to, in the latter, produce any paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, and in the former, they can't even get the titles of the papers they cite correctly; giving the wrong names and dates as well as extracting quotes that go against the sense of even the paragraph they are pulled from.





Speciation has been observed. It may not, however, mean what you think it means. Speciation is, simply, the formation of an isolated gene pool. The very definition of "species" is that an organism from one will not ordinarily breed with an organism from another; for all intents and purposes each group of genes will now be acted upon separately.


(There are some weasel words in the above, and they are not there because I am naturally long-winded, or because I lack precision. It is possible to breed together organisms that don't normally breed. Sometimes this even leads to viable -- fertile -- new organisms. In one extreme, camels and dromedaries diverged 11 million years ago but live cama have been produced via artificial insemination. At another extreme, domestic dogs -- probably feral examples -- have bred with wolves in the wild and brought the genes for darker coats into that wild species.)

Furthermore, these are just a sub-theory, if you will, of the already existing theory of evolution. Ironically, both have NOT been proven.

Proven hundreds of thousands of times. You can prove that with friut flies or bacteria in a couple of years. You can do this with mamals, but then you ahve to live a couple of thousands of years.

You are talking about very minor changes. Some, like yourself, call this microevolution, but it is not accepted the world over as science fact or anything other than evolution.


The best example of this is bacteria. Viruses are not actually alive, so they don't really work in this scenario, and they don't make leaps either.

Virus is life form. It meats all requirements, it is just not a cellular organism. They are the best example of rapid evolution. Why do we have different stains of flu each year? God creates them one by one each year?

I never said viruses were not a life form, I said they are not alive, there is a difference. Flu is still a virus, it does not become a bacteria. It just changes, most of the time in the form of a mutation, it's receptors. Bacteria, are ALIVE, and they don't suddenly become fungi.

I see facts don't mean anything to you. Claiming something, doesn't make it true. Pull your head out of your ass.

Why did you have to take it to the level of insults? I am using FACT for my very simple, east to understand argument. Do just the slightest bit of research and you will see, as I have said, microevolution is not accepted as FACT. Moreover, it is not accepted as a whole new dimension to the existing theory of evolution. To be frank, it is just bullshit used to try and explain a WEAK theory to begin with, mainly by people who think that Darwin is the "god" of science and without his theory, we would regress into apes. When in fact, evolution has no real science usage in this day. We easily observe as he did. It does not make our buildings and structures hurricane or earthquake resistant. It does not help us engineer new and powerful bacteria to aid us like microscopic workers. It does not help us create and develop stronger and more energy efficient ceramics.

It is similar to "Christians" groaning on and on about, what you call, and others, macroevolution. Using this as an excuse to completely eliminate Darwin's theory as a whole. Hell, they use it as an excuse to remove Early Earth and Big Bang also, which aren't even in the same realm.

They only thing that is certain, is that creatures can make changes, sometimes major, based on changes in their environment. In a small way, they can change genetically, but they still remain, overall, the same species.

Learn how to use the quote tags.


Only Creationists call it "micro-evolution." Science does not recognize the distinction, and needs no name for it. Any heritable adaptation is evolution, by the definitions of science.



For a bacteria, that is as significant as you "just changing" your limbs and sensory organs. A creationist bacteria would probably argue that there is no difference between you and an elephant.




Perhaps you should try providing cites instead.



I have yet to run across the term "micro-evolution" anywhere in the scientific literature. It is a term invented by Creationists to try to put a magic barrier between the observed speciation of bacteria, plants, fruit flies, etc., and the development that would lead from a common origin to the variety of life we see today.

And after three direct requests by me to you on this thread alone, you've been unable to point at any place where this barrier must exist, or any litmus test for whether a specific adaptation is "micro" or "macro." If you can't even define it, how can it possibly be science?




To be frank, it is bullshit invented by religious proselytizers to try to explain why new species of bacteria are observed evolving all the time, but somehow cows and pigs and human beings require intervention by some un-named force (pssst! It's God.) Either they feel religion and science are analogous, and therefor Darwin is at least a saint and possibly the Child of God of this competing religion, or they pragmatically realize that by creating the appearance of a debate between Evolution and Creation they produce a foothold by which they can use secular public schools and the captive audience therein as a recruiting ground for their churches.





It helps people live who would otherwise have died. It helps us predict the forms and spreads of diseases, and develop tools to fight them. It helps us understand how to grow stronger, more productive crops. It helps us to care for domestic and zoo animals. It gives us insights into micro-biology, biochemistry, and morphology that are of direct consequence in health care.

And it DOES allow us to breed new strains of microbe for a growing variety of practical functions; a surprising variety of which are already in industrial use.

It is very difficult dis-entangling evolutionary theory from the science it rests on. One result of the usual Creationist attack is to downplay, disparage, or even discredit the fossil record that demonstrates the working-out of evolution through history. Unfortunately, the oil industry, for just one example, is knowledgeable, fully supportive of, and makes practical use of that same fossil record.

You are free to disagree with the meaning of the fossil record; but that merely piles more baggage onto the flimsy alternative. The more one looks at the supporting materials -- comparative morphology, comparative genetics, paleontology, etc., the more one finds that although it is always possible there are other explanations, evolutionary theory does the best job of fitting all the disparate data points.

Well that is clear. I was tired, cut me slack, oh don't I don't give a shit.

I admit, I did not pay much attention to your replies, as I was more focused, if you can call it that, on another.

I was not the one who brought "micro-evolution" into the discussion. I was attempting to remove it, because, like you, it seemed that it was, well, for a lack of better words, bullshit, or just a distraction from the base.

I did not know it was a "Creationist" ideal. From the little I had seen it about in the past, it was used by "Darwinist", if that is a label, to throw off the "Creationist".

Changes to a bacteria are not like a human becoming an elephant. It is not even like a human growing another arm in many cases. It would be more like growing additional stomachs, or a better stomach, or a better chemical process in dealing with certain material in the process of metabolism.

As for links, here is a fun one. No one can argue it is run by biased "Creationist", it is Berkley for crying out loud. [link to evolution.berkeley.edu]

No problem. Your post was clear enough, I thought.





Part of the heartache of the internet. Discussions take off so quickly, and whole languages spring up. If you weren't in at the beginning, it can take a while to catch up and learn what are the catch-phrases, the slang, and the verbal trip-wires.

"Darwinist" is another of those shibboleths; the only people who use the term non-ironically are die-hard Creationists. The term "Micro-evolution," similarly, is usually a direct tip-off that the poster is a Creationist. Worse; since the term does not appear in scientific literature, it would never be casually used by an independent thinker; it betrays, instantly, someone who is getting their arguments from another source (often as not traceable back to the Discovery Institute, think-tank of organized Creationism).

On the flip side, the only people who would use the term "cdesign proponentsists" are those who are very active in certain skeptical circles; people who have debated on Creationism before. The term is known but rarely if ever referred to or applied by outsiders to the debate. So it also functions as a shibboleth, identifying the poster as belonging to a certain faction (if I might stretch the biblical meaning a little!)




Fair enough. I didn't mean to imply, by the way, that the human BECAME an elephant. I meant that as far as the bacteria were concerned, all us mammals look alike.

Given both the mature form of mammal innards, and the mutations just one hox gene away, growing another limb is a lot less unlikely than growing a better stomach.

(And, heck, if we are really dragging in a hypothetical intelligent bacteria to this discussion, said bacteria would probably care a heck of a lot more about the ph balance of its host. How many limbs it had wouldn't be worthy of note.)

Very true, PH can make such a major difference. In certain, warm moist areas of the human body, ie, mouth, vagina, rectum. I see the effect of changing the PH. Or by removing other bacteria, that keep the PH balanced, with antibiotics.

Now that I am way off topic, I have posted this before, but why not again because it is so very cool.

Making Gasoline from Bacteria
[link to www.technologyreview.com]

Oh, great. We have to choose? Fuck it then, I wanna be a fallen banker in need of your forgiveness. Send me your money so I can be saved.

Fucktard.