Wow, this thread has taken quite a few turns. It's evolved into something that has no resemblance to the original post. 
Wow, this thread has taken quite a few turns. It's evolved into something that has no resemblance to the original post.
Here is something interesting. MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)
That's a pretty serious example of natural selection if you look at things from a scientific viewpoint. We threw antibiotics at these critters and within a human lifetime advanced the evolution of the species onwards what otherwise might have taken a millennia if it had happened at all.
Conversely, I've heard someone speaking from a faith based platform arguing that the existence of MRSA was proof of satan's activity in our world. That's what fit into their world view. The idea that there was any science behind it at all was crazy to them.
Anyone from either viewpoint wasn't going to be able to convince anybody on the other side of the validity of anything that contradicted their paradigm.
In reply to SVreX:
I understand what you are trying to say but IMHO the science class is not the place to talk about the theory of creationism or intelligent design. You can't possibly test the existence of god. If there was a religion class in school which discussed the history and backgrounds of the different religion that would be the place to discuss those theories.
Brett, do you know anything about MRSA? It's caused by a virus that the bacteria get, to keep the explanation simple. It has nothing to do with anything purported by the "theory" of evolution. And natural selection has nothing to do with the magic one must believe in order for the evolution religion to work for you.
I've worked with a Pseudomonas Aeruginosa that wasn't resistant to all antibiotics. It was completely immune to all combinations of 2 different antibiotics. If you tried really, really hard, you could find a combination of 3 antibiotics that would slow it down. A little. That's not evolution. It's selective breeding.
But isn't selective breeding in itself proof that over time traits can be bred in/out and thus can be considered proof of evolution? I mean, if evolution did not happen then it would stand to reason selective breeding wouldn't, either.
Dr. Hess wrote: And natural selection has nothing to do with the magic one must believe in order for the evolution religion to work for you.
Do tell, please. I'd love to hear it, in all honesty.
I've worked with a Pseudomonas Aeruginosa that wasn't resistant to all antibiotics. It was completely immune to all combinations of 2 different antibiotics. If you tried really, really hard, you could find a combination of 3 antibiotics that would slow it down. A little. That's not evolution. It's selective breeding.
News at 10: Evolution IS selective breeding. It can go astonishingly quickly when the selection method is artificial (either accidental as you're discussing, or on purpose, such as Belyaev's foxes). Or, it can take millions of years, when the selection method is natural, and the survival trait is a subtle one.
My experience in regards to science v. religion: I went to private Catholic schools from mid way through grade 2 until I graduated high school. Both schools I attended were non-diocesan and were run buy the same religious order. I was taught religious studies courses by various nuns (the old school, full habit, semi-cloistered type) until I went to high school, where I was taught religious studies by lay-people. The religious course often touched on topics like evolution, and were for the most part in total agreement with current scientific studies. My science classes never bothered to discuss God because that wasn't their place.
The idea that evolution in some way stands in opposition to the belief in God, makes no sense to me as a practicing Catholic. There are plenty of problems with the curriculum of most school that should be more alarming than what they teach about evolution anyway.
When people suggest that Evolution is "just a theory", I inform them that is the case in much the same way that Plate Tectonics is "just a theory". We do not have all the answers yet, but we do not have a scientific model that comes close to explaining those particular phenomena as well.
I know for evolution, one of the phenomenon that seemed odd was that mutations and evolutionary changes do not seem to be particularly gradual or random. (I know this has been a big argument behind Intelligent Design, and I'm glad it's been asked because it's a good question.) Random genetic changes seem to either have no effect, or a significant, distinct one. Why don't random changes produce random results? The answer is actually quite simple when you understand genetics even a bit, and computer programming. DNA holds a code similar to a programming language. If you've don'e any kind of programming, you know you can have all kinds of junk code in the background doing nothing (which is what most of our DNA is). But make a few changes, or make a random change to the active code, and you can get a big, obvious change in what that code does. This is why if you have say, a person or animal that is a polydactyl (extra finger), you get a whole finger instead of just a bone nub.
This works well here, not only covers some more "theory" but also involves global warming (tinfoil hats firmly in place):
Research team finds new explanation for Cambrian explosion
(sorry, no actual explosions)
Adaptation is really quite different from evolution. Species DO adapt.
And, no selective breeding IS NOT evolution. At the heart, selective breeding implies someone making the selection, which is essentially the same thing as intelligent design.
While I am intentionally trying to avoid terms like "macro-evolution" and "micro-evolution" (because I understand the politics and the mis-use of scientific terms), I observe that (in spite of the zealots assertions) there are very few (if any) real world examples of one species evolving into other species (that is, the new species being incapable of breeding with it's ancestor, if you could actually bring them together).
Different colors for camo, sure. Longer legs to cope with differing plant life or environment, yes. Foxes getting less aggressive through domestification, of course. But evolutionary theory as an explanation of species origin mandates simple species becoming complex different ones and scientific examples of this happening are woefully rare.
Observing the results or effect doesn't really explain the cause, or the method in which the results came to be.
Additionally, there are enormous circular reasonings present in a lot of the science. IE: the paleontological record is proven because the carbon dating shows it to be such and such, and the carbon dating record is correct because it is proven by the paleontological observations.
I don't want to start a war or flounder this further than I already have. I am simply observing that without some clear observed examples of species morphing or transitional stages, I am concerned about ruling out entirely one theoretical explanation in favor of another more popular one (or more likely one). I'd rather look at both and understand each of their significant contributions to the world in which I live.
And we've had this discussion before. If I recall, Duke was a big hater on it at that time, or am I thinking of the abortion thread we had? Perhaps someone with strong Google-Fu will pull up the archive thread, this one having drifted WAY off of bombing Syria (or Iran). For the children.
As I said last time, where's the almost a thymus organ? The one still evolving in that species? How did the thymus DNA get coded from "evolution's" theories of randomness? How many base pairs code for the thymus? I don't know. I'd say a lot. And one wrong base pair and you have no thymus. No thymus, no functioning immune system. Or, more accurately, an immune system that destroys whatever host it is in. So how many "random" gamma rays had to rearrange "junk DNA" to make a thymus? What are the odds? Infinity? Oh, and "well, just multiply it by infinity and all the math works out" just doesn't cut it with me. And what about the cytochrome P450 molecule? We'd all be dead without that one. Where's the almost a cytochrome P450? And how come there's this spider enzyme molecule that crawls along the DNA chain fixing anything that may have randomly got stuck in there by some stray cosmic ray? In fact, the whole thing is set up to make darn sure "evolution," as taught, doesn't happen. Checksums and all that.
Yeah, I've seen the code. I've also coded in more programming languages than I care to recall. I can recognize computer coding when I see it.
In reply to SVreX:
That's why I liken Evolution to Plate Tectonics. We're looking at processes that happen quite slowly and have to make inferences on. I have yet to meet anyone who has a problem with plate tectonics, even though we have not and never will observe the formation of new continents or even new mountain ranges.
Evolution takes a long time. We haven't even been studying it for 200 years yet. We don't even have a few thousand years of direct data that we can look at. I mean, we've been actively breeding dogs from wolves since before recorded history, artificially accelerating their evolution, but they are still the same species and can produce fertile offspring.
I would say selective breeding is a tool that can cause evolution. But it is genetic engineering, not natural selection. The domestic dog did evolve from wolves, but did so primarily through genetic engineering.
Again, this is why it is a theory. There is a lot we don't know, and some things we are probably wrong about.
In reply to Dr. Hess:
We don't know. That doesn't mean we will never figure it out. That does not mean that the answer is magic, or God, or gremlins. It just means we need to put forth more effort if we want an answer.
I'm all for keeping an open mind. I don't believe in magic, though, so I'll draw the line there. When someone tells me "put a bunch of chemicals in a pond, mix them up, add some lightening and life comes out" I call bullE36 M3.
In reply to Dr. Hess:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/02/nasa-new-life-arsenic-bacteria_n_791094.html
I don't believe in magic either. That means I can't believe that a supreme being whose origins and existence we are not allowed to question could create the world and us out of nothing. 
That does not mean I have an explanation for how everything got to be here in the first place.
So, if it's OK to question the origin of God (which is fine by me), then it's OK to do it in school, right?
SVreX wrote: So, if it's OK to question the origin of God (which is fine by me), then it's OK to do it in school, right?
If you are in a religion class, fine.
Otherwise, no.
Curmudgeon wrote: That means I can't believe that a supreme being whose origins and existence we are not allowed to question.
I come from a Roman Catholic background and have a few friends and an ex that are Southern Baptist. Most Christians do question God; anyone who tells you not to is steering you wrong. In many cases it's encouraged. The expectation is that questioning God and examining all the arguments will deepen one's faith.
SVreX wrote: Additionally, there are enormous circular reasonings present in a lot of the science. IE: the paleontological record is proven because the carbon dating shows it to be such and such, and the carbon dating record is correct because it is proven by the paleontological observations.
The various geological dating methods are calibrated entirely by using known and consistent physical chemistry properties of various elements. There are a large number of these elements, each of which can be used for certain geological time scales (ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions of years). Absolutely NONE of these require outside corroboration from paleontological sources. It so happens that growth ring patterns in fossilized woods DO corroborate the geological dating back a fair distance, but this is by no means required in order to validate the radiometry. There is no self-referential or circular validation involved.
I don't want to start a war or flounder this further than I already have. I am simply observing that without some clear observed examples of species morphing or transitional stages, I am concerned about ruling out entirely one theoretical explanation in favor of another more popular one (or more likely one).
SVreX, this is a common mistake of logic that many questioners of evolution make. You are far from alone in making it, and I know your intent is better understanding rather than outright denial.
The truth is, every species is in constant transition. There is no "halfway between X and Y species", because there is no fixed definition of X or Y. The species we see here today are the current state of those beings, not the final product, and they also are not the only possible way those species could have come out.
If you had a perfect fossil record of a kangaroo, and stepped back through each generation for millions of generations, you would never ever look at two (or even twenty) generations next to each other and say "OK, this one is a kangaroo, and that one isn't". They would form a smooth continuum and they would all be able to mate with each other at that scale. But when you pick a 100 year-old kangaroo sample and compare it to a 10,000-year-old sample, you notice some differences, and they may not be genetically close enough to cross breed. If not, then they are declared to be a different species. The changes get larger when your samples are farther apart, but that does not mean that it is not possible to chart them.
Why are horses and donkeys able to breed mules? Because the current state of each species is still sufficiently close to their common ancestor that they can mate, albeit with imperfect results. Same reason (and result) when horses and zebras can mate, or lions with tigers.
If you are serious about learning this, I suggest you read Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show On Earth. He is unswervingly anti-religious and anti-ID, anyone will stipulate. However, in that book, he clearly explains all the arguments that support the theory of evolution by natural selection, in ways that don't require scientific knowledge to understand. He leaves the extraneous comments to a minimum in that book, and I would ask you to set aside your reactions to them in your quest to really understand the science behind it. It is FAR less uncertain than anti-evolutionists would like you to believe.
I've read it.
Ok, I'll buy that. I must say that there are many people of faith I have met who absolutely refuse to consider any other POV.
But how about the folks who insist that the world is 6000 years old and that dinosaur fossils were planted by god to test human faith?
Just one of may pages devoted to that very subject: http://creation.com/dinosaur-bonesjust-how-old-are-they-really
Dr. Hess wrote: And we've had this discussion before. If I recall, Duke was a big hater on it at that time.
I'm not going to get into this again with you, sir, because you base your accusations on so many incorrect assertions and assumptions that there is no use trying to deflect them all. Suffice it to say that for every single example you give above, you are making the mistake (mistake?) of assuming that life as we know it NOW is the only possible way for life to be. So all of your astronomical odds against evolution happening randomly are rendered completely irrelevant by your insistence that life could never have existed at all without everything being in its current form. Certainly the odds of recreating current life forms by random action are ludicrous to consider. But your assumptions utterly ignore that the possible forms life could have taken are infinite.
In reply to Dr. Hess:
I was using MRSA as an example of how two people from different backgrounds can look at the same thing and draw two very different conclusions.
You've presented me with a third viewpoint, thank you.
Curmudgeon wrote: Ok, I'll buy that. I must say that there are many people of faith I have met who absolutely refuse to consider any other POV. But how about the folks who insist that the world is 6000 years old and that dinosaur fossils were planted by god to test human faith?
I can't really speak for them. I've honestly never met anyone who believes that. I know there are people who hold those beliefs; I've just never had the chance to pick their brains. I personally think it's crazy talk and they've missed the point to some degree. The Bible contains hyperbole. I'm comfortable with that because the point of the text is the message it conveys.
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