Because the presence of links is indicative of the truth of something? Tell me, how, exactly, am I supposed to link to a room full of physical papers? The internet is great, but it’s not THAT great yet. Some educated people still prefer to physically write things down, you know.
No, the presence of links is not proof of anything–I can find lots of links which spout falsehood. But, if you assert something, it is up to you to do the work of backing up your assertions. You cannot tell the *other *person to go and find things for himself!
Links, etc., are sort of like background or back-up information in a discussion.
Ok. You’re understanding how species work, but now look at what is called “ring species” and you begin to understand the species problem:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species We also have to worry about horses and donkeys, because they can breed and produce mules, yet mules cannot themselves breed, so are they a different species or not? Lions and Tigers too. And then lets backtrack, because for centuries mules were though to be unable to breed, and then, on extremely rare occasion, we have discovered that they do, in fact, successfully breed, yet their parent species are clearly distinct. And different plant species are crossed all the time, and they produce fertile seed. Many biologists, thus, would argue that “wolf” and “dog” are different species despite being able to breed, while others, of course disagree. Hence, the blurry line. Our knowledge is no less because of it, it is simply causing difficulty in categorizing and organizing.
OK, so scientists have difficulty with some of the current sets of species. Ideally, a species is a group of similar animals which can breed with each other and not breed with members of other groups, or can interbreed with members of some other groups but the offspring are sterile.
However, sometimes there is a little bit of fluidity, such as the admittedly extremely rare cases in which mules are not sterile.
And we have the cases in which some plants can interbreed with another type of plant, like some different members of the brassicae family can interbreed.
I think I have this.
There is no “macro-evolution” the way you’re thinking. It is an imaginary term. It is also a prime example of moving the goal posts. I have had this conversation many times before, and every time I give an example, the goal posts get moved on me and my opponent says “but they’re still both cats”, etc. So I go higher and higher up in the animal classification system, and all the while I hear “but they’re still both…” Even providing examples of one bacteria evolving into another produces cries of “but they’re still both bacteria”, despite bacteria being all the way up to a domain, being the highest and broadest classification rank below “life”, which is really not a classification in itself.
Ummmm, this is my problem with evolution: they talk funny.
I can believe that God designed everything to sort of unfold–I think there may be a name for this because someone else (on CAF but a different thread a long time ago) pointed it out as a way of thinking about it, like little timebombs so that species would then change, he put it much better–or that He guided evolution, or that He created different species at various times, or that He simply thought and it all came into being as described in Genesis.
However, I can *not *believe in a-theistic evolution, no way, no how.
To me, a-theistic evolution is promoted by the way scientists and even Catholics talk about everything coming into being. So, when you say, the whale evolved from the Pakicean (SP??? sorry!), I have a problem with that. There is a *gap. *There is first, a grammatical problem, in that there is an active verb about something moving upwards.
So, we say, the computer broke down, but we do not say, the computer figured out my bills for me. That is because the moving up aspect must have an actor; when left to its own devices what the computer will do is to break down, not *improve. *
When people say, God (or an Intelligent Designer) *designed *birds to fly, or guided or arrranged the change from a land-based Pakicecean (sp??) to a whale, then it all makes more sense.
But then you have the problem of “the God of the gaps.” Scientists do not want to fill the areas they do not know with God because it may be that at some point in the future, we will know how that happened scientifically and the gap will be filled.
Hence, I have to ask for a rather specific and unmovable line as to what you would call an example of “macro-evolution”, since the definition creationists give for it so often wildly varies and gets changed mid-conversation in my experience, I can’t really respond adequately until I get it absolutely defined.
Funny, that’s how I feel, that the advocates of evolution always move the line, re-define what they are talking about, include the odd-ball outlier, and make up their little stories to prove what they assert. You say that macro-evolution is an imaginary idea; well, the advocates of evolution kept talking about minor changes within species to “prove” evolution, so the term macro-evolution makes sense: it is the changing of one species into another, where you start off with fruit flies and end up with an improved, viable, *different *species.
True. But then you should “test all things”, which includes your own thinking.
And here I am, testing my thinking against yours. You may be right, I may be crazy…
So ask yourself - these scientists, who are actually sticking to science (as opposed to postulating about the necessity of a deity to start the universe, which crosses into philosophy), go through a 4 year undergrad program, 2 years of grad school, and then another 4-6 to get their doctorate, and then spend years and decades doing experiements, teaching, going to conferences, producing and reading papers, and generally centering their lives and careers around biology and evolution - how is it that you, without any of that, understand evolution better? Does it really make any sense that hundreds of thousands of scientists all over the world, spending decades studying evolution would miss something that you have discovered without any training or education, without any experimentation, and with nothing more than a computer that has access to the internet? Or is it more logical that they have studied the very objections you bring forth, and answered and refuted them decades ago, and that you simply have not seen those explanations? (I would posit because many creationist “leaders” all over the internet are adamant and tell you repeatedly that such explanations don’t exist so as to convince you not to bother to look for them)
Ummmm, I have read and heard enough about the imposition of evolution over the decades since its appearance to discount all that, yes. Moreover, the logic of a-theistic evolution is still lousy. And while those scientists have studied, etc., they have not found anything either.
I am an agnostic when it comes to our past. I don’t think we need to have the evolutionary ladder or tree or whatever to categorize, but if it helps scientists to think, I don’t mind. I just object to the idea that something has been proved when it hasn’t, and that the language implies that it all occurred randomly even when theists use it, etc.
He (she?) is very skeptical but if we are patient we may get through! Skepticism is better than the blind faith you see in some sheep, even misplaced skepticism.