Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
God Must Hate Cotton
The biotech industry inserted a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that is responsible for creating a toxic protein into cotton to protect it against the bollworm moth. So now we have fields of human genetically modified cotton in fields across the south. Talk about putting pressure on the bollworm moth caterpillars. In response they have evolved a resistance to the Bt protein!
So either
1. God is taking time out of controlling world affairs and answering prayers to mess with the genetics of the bollworm moth so they can live to destroy the US cotton crop. (Maybe God really wants to break out his polyester from the 70's again.)
or
2. We have some more compelling evidence to add to the evolution "debate".
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Natural selection in action
Hi MandyU. The article mentioned no 'evolved' resistance to GM crops. The headline "Pest Evolves Resistance to GM Crops" gives the impression that new genetic information was created in the bollworm moth as a response to the GM cops, but the article doesnt say anything about new genetic information being created. More likely, resistant bollworn moths were already there among the non-resistant moths and the GM crops just weeded them out. Weeding out happens all the time during epidemics; individuals or groups with resistant genes survive, those with no resistance die. The population is then dominated by the resistant individuals because their competition is dead. It is, more accurately, natural selection in action and not Evolution in action (capitalized the E in 'evolution' to mean Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, natural selection being just part of the theory, albeit an important part). To conclusively establish that new genetic information was created as a response to the GM crops, scientists have to examine populations of bollworm moth that have not been exposed to the GM gene to see if the 'resistant gene' already existed in populations prior to exposure. If the resistant gene already existed, then the findings are falsified, that is, no new genetic information was written in response to the GM crops. If the resistant gene cannot be found, then the findings look pretty strong. Until of course the resistant gene is found.
Already there?
The reason why the crops where modified in the first place was to make them unattractive food for the bollworm moths. I would assume (I've admittedly not read farther into this) that the early research involved presenting the bollworm moths with the protein and watching them all die in response. Then scientists then decided this was the protein to insert into cotton to keep the moths away.
I can try to get more information on this if you would like. I might even be able to find some published field studies. I could look into how many generations the moth has been through since it first encountered the modified protein. I can see if I can find info on the other sources of food for the moth. I can also try and find out if the moth genome is one that we have mapped (like the fruit fly). It might take me a while to get the info together, but I'll see what I can do.
Mandy U
Wow, thanks. You dont really
Wow, thanks. You dont really have to. I trust scientists are working on it. But here's the thing: what I understand about the theory of evolution is that it's purposeless. Mutations dont occur in response to something. They occur all the time. So it would be more likely that the mutation that made some moths resistant to the GM crops were already there and werent written for the purpose of countering the Bt protein. Natural selection did the rest. Anyway, it wasnt a criticism of the science. Im not a professional scientist. It was rather a criticism of science reporting in newspapers. The headline 'Pest evolves resistance to GM crops' gives the impression that the resistant gene came about because of the GM crops. If any resistant strain emerged, it wasnt because of anything. Im not familiar with the habits of the moths, whether they tend to stay put or whether they migrate or whether eggs and larva survive being inadvertently transported from somewhere else via trains and planes. If the moths do a lot of travelling, then resistant ones from places not exposed to the GM crops would be mixed in with the population. I submit that that's a valid line of inquiry.
I think It's Semantics
I was stuck on your "the mutations are already there" thing I think. The mutation may or may not have been there to start (probably not). Then the mutation arose in one lucky moth. And bingo Evolution of the species by Natural Selection. Now when you look at the population, most moths probably have the mutation. So, the mutation in the genes is not an evolution. That is just the purposeless mix up of an A for a T or something. As a result of that, the species has evolved.
Mandy U
Purposeless
I'm not a scientist either. But ...
The word "purposeless" is probably technically correct, but it has some unfortunate sideband meanings that I'm uncomfortable associating with any field of science.
I prefer the statement that evolution is not goal-directed. Those old diagrams that showed the worms down at the bottom and humans as the top had INTENT built into them, the clear message that evolution was deliberately heading toward human beings, the peak and crowning achievement of evolution.
There are plenty of people today who still believe it. Seems to me the dopey question "If man came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" comes right out of that mindset.
A Newt?
Same thing are happening with Newts and Garter Snakes. Knewts are extremely toxic but the only creature on the planet that can stand that toxin is a garter snake. Recently they have discovered that the toxicity in Newts is increasing in order to protect themselves from the immune snakes. In turn, the snakes are now passing on the genes of snakes who have a little higher tolerance for the toxic Newts and this battle will be won by the species who can evolve the fastest.
Its pretty simple, I don't know why its so hard to understand. Clearly the snakes who can't take the Toxin won't produce many offspring and clearly the Newts who don't produce enough toxin are not going to live long fruitful lives.
I'd bet on the snakes...
The snake with the higher tolerance gets too pass on his (her?) genes - the more toxic newt still gets swallowed, and doesn't.
What am I missing?
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
Not necessarily
Animals also get pretty good at detecting toxins by taste or smell. The more toxic newt probably doesn't get swallowed. He might get nipped and immediately released. Blecch!
Also ...
Imagine that the more toxic ones are also different visually. If I'm a predator and I eat a newt with a blue tail, but find out after I swallow it that it burns going down and then gives me a severe bellyache, I might be wary of blue-tailed newts after that.
Which means: Although the newt I swallowed can't pass on his genes, his brothers and sisters might enjoy immunity from being eaten just long enough that they can pass on theirs. Kin selection.
Any attribute that allows a predator to distinguish the bad newts from the good ones would probably promote this advantage.
I think someone from the
I think someone from the Discovery Institute should sit down and make a good old-fashioned Pros vs. Cons table to weigh the evidence.
Well, if you're talking about scientific evidence, one line of evidence (evolutionary) will fill so many volumes you'd need a library of substantial size, as well as a huge museum, to hold it.
The other line (creationism-ID) would be a single blank piece of paper.
But I'm betting the probability that anyone at DI would honestly do this is very close to zero.
By the way, while richg is accurate in describing micro-evolution as it is usually taught, it is a term I avoid in my Genetics and Evolution class. It is a misleading because it implies that evolution is following different pathways, and that can be quantified as well. In addition, it is frequently used by creationists as a defense for their whole "kinds" hermenutics.
Gene shuffling, geneotypic isolation, and gene migration are occuring contemporaneously with gene mutations, gene duplications, chromosomal changes, and the introduction of "alien" genes (via plasmid exchange, viruses or what have you).
Populations evolve. There is no set rate, or set amount they must evolve to be able to discriminate between what is "micro" and "macro". Sure, we can see the effects of allele shuffling in sexual selection. And we can measure the effects of bottlenecking events. But all the other things, which we don't currently measure with any systematic approach, they are happening in that same population and at the same time.
To those who pull the old "no one's showed macroevolution",well, yes we have. It's called the fossil record. It's called biogeography. It's called molecular genetics. It's called comparative anatomy and physiology. If you don't like that evidence, well, fuck you. We scientist are sick and tired of a bunch of religiously motivated carnival barkers posturing as expects about what evolution has or has not done, can or cannot do.
God loves Hemp, though
'cuz it's a successful fiber plant that doesn't seem to need coddling from Monsanto. Oh wait, I think I just figured out the real reason we can't grow it here.
Save your ammo
This is in actual practice a non-issue. Too small of a case.
I know of no creationist who dismisses genetic variation and selection - or what they would call "micro-evolution". I should know, was one, for a while.
The whole thing of Darwinian evolution, to me now it is a non-issue. The development of the physical world, whether through the eons of cosmology or a magical "Poof!" make no difference. We are here, and are grappling with the meaning of it all, or even if there is any. How long it took, and in what steps, don't even enter my picture.
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
Non-issues, and Other Dangers
And there's yet another way in which we differ.
Rich, in this and some of your other comments, I've noticed that you have that typical religious "doorstop" in your head. You're willing to have the door swing so far – say in accepting "microevolution" – but no farther.
Yet I begin to wonder if the underlying real reason you're here is that you, too, realize it, and you're searching for some reason to let it go, and accept that some of the stuff in your head is useless and counterproductive ... and FALSE.
You used to be a creationist, you say. If you recovered from that, you're obviously able to think about things at some level of independence.
You probably see me as an antagonist, and a bit of a snarky one, and I'll admit that as far as you’re concerned, I haven't been a very sympathetic presence. But I always do really hope that people will become realer and more open. I think the world depends on an "evolution" of thought in each of us, away from the static, frozen patterns of religion and toward something more reality-based.
And when I say "the world depends on," I literally mean I think it's life-or-death. I think we're seriously screwed if the majority of us remain on the irrational side of the line. The price of irrationality was tolerable in all those past years when we were beasts among the beasts, but 100 years or so ago, it started being intolerable.
We now have vast power to change things. The power itself is value-neutral, but ...
I’ve often said “If you have a faulty mental model of a problem, you get right answers only by accident.”
Because the power is directed by irrationality, it can only be the power to destroy .. except by rare happy accidents. We’re already seeing it. The slow-motion-so-far process of destruction is speeding up. All these little news stories of certain types of fish vanishing from the ocean, of certain species of dolphin dying out, of mountain gorillas expected to vanish, of glaciers melting, of polar ice withdrawing, of unpredictable weather patterns ... it’s HERE.
And it’s here because we haven’t been reasonable. We haven’t used foresight. We haven’t thought about our decisions and actions. We’ve made them based on silly “ancient wisdom” that NO LONGER APPLIES, frozen-in-time ideas that are now an immense danger to us and to our planet.
I’ve said elsewhere that I had a recent scary epiphany: Humans under pressure become less intelligent.
And oh boy, do we have some pressury times coming. I’m not sure whether the election of President Bush was a symptom of the panic that I imagine coming – in other words, the “less intelligent” is already here – or just some historical aberration due to other factors. But there’s no denying that his reign in American politics made the world much less safe, much less livable, much less reasonable, must less intelligent.
But whether he was a symptom or not, the process will continue to speed up. Unless people, a lot of us, can be dragged back into rationality. Into moment-by-moment careful reasoning of solutions to the problems that we already have and careful prophylactic planning to prevent some of the worse ones to come – ones we can already see.
I hope if you’re in the midst of your own mental revolution, that you’ll go faster. I hope you’ll get there. I hope a lot of us will.
I flatter myself that I can sometimes see some of the broad general patterns of the world. There’s a current to history, and it happens back behind all the things people say. It’s what they actually DO, and all the side effects that happen because of it – and the way those things play out on the gaming table of the living world itself.
The broad general pattern I see now is that if we go on with people like you, and all those even less open and imaginative, we’re dead. And we’ll drag a lot of the things I love about the planet – lions and polar bears and ravens and red foxes and such – into the pit with us.
I repeat, I think this is already happening: Watching it is like watching a parked car with the brake off start to roll down a hill. Nothing will save it from a crash ... except intelligent action.
I imagine moments in history when war came to this place or that, and how the residents of those places were willing to give up something of their own personal autonomy – up to and including their own lives – to place it in the hands of the war effort, aiming at the larger goal of regaining peace.
As an individualist, I appreciate that process with great reluctance. Giving up something of your Self should always be the last resort.
But the necessity of personal sacrifice is again upon us. Fortunately, this time, it isn’t individuality that has to be sacrificed for the war effort. This time, the war is against human ignorance, against mental laziness, against the sullen beastly part of us that wants to not think, but only react, and then find reasons and justifications later.
For the greater good, once again we have to give up something of our own sovereign selves. This time, what we have to give up is our own ignorance, our own desire not to see, not to know. Our desire to take it easy on ourselves, to tell ourselves none of it really matters, to lounge around in comfortable old patterns of thought forever, like today is a pajama-clad Saturday morning of a weekend that will never end.
But it isn’t. It’s not even Monday morning. It’s more like Friday afternoon, and there are only a few hours left to us to get the vital work done before the 5 o’clock deadline.
We have to give up our own irrationality, and our tolerance for it. Now.
It’s time you started thinking about why you’re really here. If you’re here only to be a Christian dog-in-the-manger – “Well, you atheists don’t know EVERYTHING.” – fine, stay as long as you like and do that.
If it’s this other thing I suspect, SPEED IT UP. We need you over here in the clear air, so we can all concentrate on what needs to be done.
A lot to consider
Thanks for taking so much time to write your thoughts - it gives me much to consider.
I think you missed my point on this:
What I was saying is that mainline creationists accept microevolution, and that I do not have a problem with the Darwinian hypothesis. I have too much science in me to accept a "young earth" model, but I recognize the arguments of those who do. 'Recognize', not 'accept'.
Well, yeah. But that comes with the territory, so to speak, and I accept that. I, too, am trying to get people to become more honest and real, and not use their religion (or lack of one) as a cop-out or simply as "fire insurance". Centuries ago, the Church was almost the sole holdout for reason against superstition (I know that I am leaving myself wide open on this), and I wish to see that return. Not the political excesses made in the name of religion, but... I guess I am more of an idealist than many others.
It sounds like you are willing to give up a degree of individual autonomy in order to "save the planet". I have two main problems with that.
First, please turn some of your reasoned skepticism toward the global warming stuff. There is a lot of political expediency replacing objective science. The din of popular acceptance of this is drowning out the climatologists who are saying "wait a minute..."
Second, I think you are opening the door to government control of your life by the certified experts. And as we have already seen, government does not limit itself to the incidental issues or minor inconveniences. Eventually, every government ends up becoming totalitarian until the ordinary citizens rise up and force a change to reclaim their freedom.
What's the point in "saving the planet" if we subjugate ourselves to external control in doing so? Is there some mystical presence on this planet that we are destroying? If so, that is just another religion. Do we have an obligation to guard and protect other life-forms here? Darwin says no and the theologians say yes. And either choice is, at its heart, a religious choice.
If we got here by unconscious evolution, then the Earth will go on, albeit differently, after we are gone. And who is to tell if that is a good thing or a bad thing?
Nah. I'm not in that big of a hurry. I only have a lifetime to figger it out. It's taken me years to get here, and very little of what I have written is recent thinking (well, most of it within the last 20 years). To be too hasty may mean overlooking something subtle that just might be the key that makes everything else make sense.
Bottom line: I enjoy the challenge to become more real and rational, and to learn to take responsibility for the things that happen in my life. But that does not require me to reject my core - that there *is* something sacred about life, something that cannot be put in a test tube for scientific scrutiny. That brings me to a recent realization about one of the themes in C.S.Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Aslan did not do *anything* that was within the ability or authority of Peter, Susan, Edmund or Lucy to do. He did only that which was outside their ability (taking care of the witch) and left all the rest up to them. Even in the scene where Peter has to kill the wolf, Aslan stood back and did not interfere.
I believe in a God like that - who does not interfere, but wants me to grow up, stop blaming others for my failures and take responsibility for myself.
So please continue to challenge me, and between the two of us there can be a greater understanding of "life, the universe and everything"
Maybe the answer is not "42"
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
It's political expediency, all right.
You bet there is, on the side of the deniers.
You mean all those climatologists hooked up with the Marshall Institute and their spawn? The ones whose political ideology places US national sovereignty above even the survival of the planet?
Damn. Do you seriously weigh it like that? Oh, I guess you really do:
...and can you really be that crazy? We "subjugate" ourselves to external control in the interest of the common good all the time. Do you drive 100mph in school zones? No? But our culture of limitless consumption masquerading as "freedom" does something very similar to the next generation all over the world.
"Darwin says"... no such thing as you impute to him here. I have kids. I value my community. They have kids. Life is good and it won't stay good in a ruined environment. You need angels dancing on the head of a pin to make you care about future generations?
Christian doctrine seems to say that humans are Soooooo special that our fate is not tied up with that of the other critters. That population dynamics applies to other species but not to us.
...
Oops... Double post.
How do I get rid of the extra posts?
How do I get rid of the extra posts?
Has Camille Paglia gone over to the Dark Side?
Found on Salon.Com:
I guess I'm in good company.
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
Thanks!
Good points all. Thank you for weighing in, DOF.
I should know better than to take my time with people like Rich, but I always hope they're reachable. There was a best-selling New Age author a few years back who actually wised up and realized what she was doing, and made a 180-degree turn on all the stuff she'd formerly sold to people. And I like to think that the occasional foray into reaching across the aisle is worth doing.
That being said, it's amazing how you feel after you DO reach across the aisle, only to have your hand get slapped back with dumbfuckery. Rich either didn't bother to read what I actually wrote, he's too stupid to understand it, or there's some sort of roadblock of fear in his head that keeps him from facing and replying to what was actually said.
I talk specifically about things I value about the earth – lions and polar bears and ravens and red foxes – and the roaring voices in his head tell him I’m speaking of a “mystical presence on this planet.” (He aims a gratuitous whack of the goofy stick at Darwin for good measure.)
I talk about issues of the misplaced use of power, and the necessity of sacrificing our own blithe ignorance for more rational aspirations, and he hears some sort of Limbaughian conspiracy to “subjugate” him with lies about global warming. (Far be it from me to force him to declare war on his own ignorance, but damn ...)
I talk about the looming disaster, and he says “Nah. I’m not in that big of a hurry.”
The things you say, on the other hand, are so obvious, that if you care about today’s kids, you’ll care about protecting the world they’ll have to live in, and yet ... Argh. He can’t even begin to get it. For him, it’s more important to ferret out the government villains – probably Limbaugh’s “librools” – who threaten his rights.
Rich is one of those people who goes through life with his head wrapped in kevlar and teflon. No argument can pierce through to him, and even incidental knowledge just slides right off. You say “A B C D E” to him and he always seems to hear and answer “J,” and then throws in some R and Z to demonstrate how clever he is.
He’s placidly content to be, indefinitely, his unchanging self, all the while smugly convinced he is becoming “more real and rational.”
Gah.
I was hoping for a more thoughtful answer
Your post sounds more like a pre-recorded reaction than a thought-out response.
I have too much exposure to geology, astronomy, natural history and statistics to so blindly accept the current dogma that we are "destroying our planet".
1. Our planet will go on, with or without us. Until our sun burns up all its hydrogen and helium. Then we will have *real* global warming, and our planet will cease to exist - literally.
2. The climate on earth has been through far more dramatic shifts than what we are getting so worked up over. From ice ages through hot greenhouses, life has persisted.
3. How do we know that the current climate is the "right one"? It seems we are trying to preserve a snapshot of a dynamic environment as if that instant in time is how things are supposed to be forever.
4. The climatological models are so imprecise that the scientific community cannot be relied on to even predict hurricane seasons (like they did the past 2 years, and got it totally wrong)
5. Statistically, all the mainline scientists have is a correlation, not a cause-and-effect. CO2 is rising, but historically this follows temperature, which follows solar activity. The trends can be observed, not controlled or isolated, which is what you must be able to do to separate the cause from the effect.
6. The supposition that "all reputable scientists accept Global Warming" relies on the branding of everyone else as not reputable. That is a selective filtering. And we are not in a democratic process to see which science is to be believed. We want them to be right before we make wide-ranging social policies based on their scientific predictions.
7. There have been enough 'crackpot scientific theories' that have been demonstrated to be true, from Galileo, Newton, Pasteur, through the guys who proposed Plate Tectonics, Quantum Physics and 'M' Theory, that we should hold the traditional understandings with a light hand - so many have been proven wrong upon further study.
8. The natural world is incapable of caring whether we are here or not, nor whether we have changed anything or not. Darwinian natural selection doesn't care; it only describes an unconscious process. The only organisms on the globe that do care are human beings - and it is debatable if that has been a good thing.
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
Rich, you are just beyond help
You certainly have internalized the talking points of the deniers. You've even folded in a Galileo gambit for good measure. It's obvious there's no point in directing you to scientific answers to each one of the canards you have played back. You are a walking, talking Marshall Institute success story.
For all your "exposure to" the sciences you don't seem to know much and what you do know is tangled up in your politics like five miles of old fishing line. And you confuse this with your religion.
And then you reveal yourself to be a nihilist - a strange position for someone presenting himself as a Christian.
Bingo!
That's the only logical alternative I see. When taken to its ultimate conclusion, an unconscious universe has no meaning for you, me or anyone else. There is no final answer except to fool ourselves into thinking that we are making any difference at all.
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
This is a strange kind of philosophical greed
to want your existence to have some cosmic, eternal, transcendent meaning. And if you can't have that, then you don't want any meaning at all!
Meaning, like existence itself, can be local. It matters to me if my children live and see their children and grandchildren live happy lives. I don't worry about the sun going out in 3 billion years. I don't expect my existence to have god-like significance extending across eternity and infinity.
If you nihilism leads you to act like a selfish jerk, that is another argument against it. Aside from the obvious one.
The right question
Whenever the subject of 'The Meaning of Life' (and I don't mean the movie) comes up I always tell people that that is the wrong question. It presupposes a one-size-fits-all answer that would apply equally to all living things from the bacteria and archaea to ourselves and I don't think there is one. The right question is - 'Where is the meaning in life?' That is one that can have an answer and the burden falls upon each of us to either discover or manufacture it. That's for each of us individually, but individuality is not the total picture. I am still wondering if sometime our species will embrace a racial purpose. Right now the racial purpose seem to be meme (religion, country, money) defense which is a shame considering what might be accomplished if we all worked together.
A related question 'What is the purpose of life?' Actually does have an answer. Complexity arises when energy passes cyclically through a system of sufficient elements (like sand grains arranging themselves into dunes). This happens because these patterns dissipate energy more efficiently than a purely chaotic arrangement. Life is a lot of very complex chemistry therefore the purpose of life is to dissipate the sun's energy which you do just from normal biological processes. I am not sure how comforting that is though. It is something of a cosmic irony that the complexity which gave rise to our brains also seems to have gifted us with a hunger for inherent meaning in a universe devoid of it. Pisser.
At least YOU can get away with saying it...
And I get called a Nihilist for saying virtually the same thing...
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
...
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
In reply to this nonsense
In reply to this nonsense I leave only this quote from Charles Darwin which I came across while reading about his birthday tomorrow:
Although leaving it for you reminds me of Matthew 7:6
The Voices, Make Them Stop!
Projection. Again: Gah.
And there he goes again replying to the voices in his head, talking about anything but the points raised by his discussion partner.
I’m imagining that when Rich was in grammar school, there was a day when the teacher said “Today, class, we’re going to talk about the color blue.” And Rich leaped out of his seat with his hand up: “Ooh, ooh, Miss Summers, I know a LOT about bananas!”
...
As to his comment title: "I was hoping for a more thoughtful answer" Richie, you don't respond well to thoughtful answers. You don't listen to them, you don't understand them. You make the effort of thought a wasted effort. Talking to you is really a lot like talking to a 5-year-old who has discovered the fascinating, never-ending game of "But WHY?"
I guess I'm not aiming at you
That's super that your beyond this and I don't need to defend myself against you. There are plenty of people that I do feel the need to point this information out to.
Also, something that I'm really stuck on...what exactly is the difference between "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution"? I've heard a few explanations and I just don't understand what was trying to be said.
Welcome, by the way. I don't agree with all of your viewpoints, but I respect the manner in which you present yourself and your beliefs.
Mandy U
False Distinction
There is no difference. Macro is just a whole bunch of micro. It's a matter of scale.
It is also a dishonest semantic parlor game played by creationists and IDers.
That's what I said
Yeah, that's how I feel, but I always argue better when I fully understand what the other side's argument is. In my mind you can't have what are perceived as large scale changes without first having a number of small changes that lead to the large one. That's as far as I've gotten though.
They have to be trying to say something other than 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1 doesn't equal 9 because 1 is small and 9 is big, don't they?
Mandy U
That's good.
That's a really good analogy, Mandy.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Thanks Jim!
I'm sure I'm "missing the point" in their minds. I'm trying to figure out what their point is exactly if I've missed it.
richg said that they don't "believe in" macro evolution because the earth is to young for any kind of large scale change like that. I think someone from the Discovery Institute should sit down and make a good old-fashioned Pros vs. Cons table to weigh the evidence. That is what I would do if I started having conflicting evidence for something. Then I'd look back at my info sources to see if they are credible. That's the logical approach. Then again, it would be so much easier to just say "Nah, that can't be right. It says to right here!"
P.S. You made my day. I got a compliment from Jim!
Mandy U
Either . . .
Either I need to start handing out more compliments or you need to raise your standards, Mandy - I'm not sure which. ;)
No, seriously, while there is certainly a lot to be said for reasoned, informed analysis/argument on any topic, the ability to come up with a simple and appropriate analogy that will cut through the crap is very valuable - and fairly rare. Because it will have a greater impact on people who won't have the background or inclination to understand a longer piece. And generally, such an analogy can only come from someone who *does* understand the nuances of an argument well enough to be able to distill it down.
So, yes, my compliments.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Microevolution
Thank you for the welcome.
In general "micro-evolution" refers to the natural range of variability within a specie or genus. We know that there are varieties and sub-species in nature- and we have exploited those differences in domesticating both plants and animals for our uses (like the way we developed so many kinds of corn). It is natural to expect that there would also be a reaction by nature to changed conditions. But the bollworm moth is still a bollworm moth, although with a new feature.
Macro-evolution involves, for example, the development of a whale from a deer-like animal.
Those who believe in a recent creation do not have enough time for the latter to happen, but do not reject the former.
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
Actually...
...I don't think I want to talk politics with you (just looked back at the "rainbow" thread).
Mandy U
Cottonpickin'
I think it's that whole "mixed fabrics" thing. The moth is an obvious choice for smiting.
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