Stephen wrote:
>What "tells" evolution anything? This is intelligent design and
artificial selction."
The same thing that is telling the I'wis to alther their bills. Those with
altered bills are surviving
Stephen wrote:
>But does it really answer Jim's questions? 1. "How should the
>environment know that a few more clubs are `better' "? and 2. "Unless
>the player with the most clubs `survives' the present hand, how is
>his position on the next deal a `cumulation'"?
You second question answers the first. Until this century people with
juvenile diabetes had a short life expectancy. How does the environment know
that a functioning pancreas is better? The environment doesn't know
anything, those with poorly functioning pancreas died in years past. Today,
the environment has changed. They live because they can get daily injections
of insulin. The survival of those with functioning pancreas meant that the
next generation would be a culmination and for the most part have functioning
pancreas.
Your quotations of paleontologists with your dismissal of the importance of
what you term microevolution illustrates something important. The
paleontologists are talking about the large morphological gaps between the
higher orders. I was talking to Jim about the smaller changes which he
thought didn't exist. We were not talking about the change between phyla.
But, since the evolution of one bird into another is merely microevolution,
since it doesn't alter the basic body plan, what do ;you, or anyone, call the
amount of morphological difference between humans and the gorilla or
chimpanzee? Their basic body plan is the same as ours. . What I find
fascinating is that we won't use the evolution of a horse into a kulan or a
dog into a fox, as evidence of evolution because the differences are minor
but if the above suggestion is made that the differences between man and ape
are equally small, we get touchy. Is this consistent?
Stephen wrote quoting me first:
"GM>Consider this: Does our galaxy orbit the local galactic group? The
>necessary changes in position on the sky of the other galaxies are
>far too small to even be measured. The only motion we can detect is
>line of sight motion. Extrapolation from the measured motion does
>not lead to an orbit, but to collisions with other galaxies.
>My point is this, if you believe that there is an orbit for our galaxy
>in the local cluster, then you believe in alteration of events which are too
>small to even measure. So why is there a sudden reluctance among many
>christians to disbelieve that small changes in the genetic composition
>eventually leads to major morphological change?
>SJ>Because there is no evidence that it does:
So does this mean that you don't believe that the Galaxies are orbiting each
other also? There is no direct evidence of that either.
glenn