Should creationism be taught in public schools?

[GuyNTexas]

Originally Posted by slambango

You don't get it, do you? No you don't.

He's not willing to believe, but willing to admit it's POSSIBLE. You see, space aliens are possible. Space aliens who created life are possible....

But a god (life that magically always existed from nothing) is impossible.

God not only doesn't exist. It CAN NOT exist. That's the point you don't get.

The obvious point you missed in the posted video is this ... the mystery is how the FIRST self replicating molecule came into existence ... Dawkins doesn't know where it came from ... says no one else does either ... and doesn't even attempt to claim that it evolved out of nothing.

That's the part that you don't get ... and I'm certain that isn't the only part you don't get.

Let me give you a little hint ... and you should be able to relate .... it seems altogether obvious that Dawkins despises religion and the very idea of God. Any God. Therefore, it's no surprise why he'd bend so far over backwards to attempt to legitimize the flagrantly idiotic nonsense that IS evolution the way that he does. I suppose in his mind, anything that refutes creationism, no matter how absurd or fraudulent is just the price that needs paying for the greater good .. to eliminate any hint of God.

This rather overt hatred of God is an emotional problem for this man. But he's got an agenda to discredit God any way he can.

As for myself ... I have no God agenda like Dawkins ... if there is a God, he doesn't need my assistance .... and if there isn't ... my support or denial is irrelevant.

I look at the matter from a purely non-religious ... common sense, practical view ... the DNA code is too complex to have occurred by random chance, consequently, it had to be designed. I have no clue by who or what ... just that it had to be. I similarly don't know who wrote the Mac OSX operating system ... I just know someone did ... because I'm Fvcking using it right now.

And these conclusions are relatively base level intelligence, to which anyone who has self awareness should GET immediately.

[harborlady]

Wow a whole lot of editorializing personal attacks. What's so awful about science calling itself theory, in other words, admitting the possibility of being wrong or insufficient evidence to conclude with absolute certainty? Truth in advertising shouldn't be getting grief IMO. Why would anyone seek a savior in science? Absolutes are nice to have, but human beings are bound to their own limitations of perception and communicating.

This would be the problem with religious theory. It provides conclusive (absolute) answers based on nothing else but the words inspired by god filtered through the minds and hands of men who already had their own biases. If what they've written down becomes unintelligible, no one may dispute anything at all. Ever. No one may consider facts as they make themselves apparent that the world is round, even if the Bible never said a thing about the world being flat. They just made stuff up and filled in the blanks.

So what is this argument really about again? Oh yes, men hiding behind the Bible claiming they're God.

Neither science nor religion should have any fear of the truth, whatever it may be. Whether material evidence discovered at some point in the future or the metaphorical hand of God schooling us all where we all went wrong. This isn't a competition, but religious leaders making it out to be only reveals to me a profound absence of faith on their part.

[GuyNTexas]

Originally Posted by HistorianDude

Just to cover the important points.

Then its a very good thing that this is not an accurate paraphrase of evolution.

First and foremost, the driving mechanism behind evolution is not mutation, but natural selection. Mutation merely provides the raw material (genetic variation) upon which natural selection can act. Since selection reduces genetic variation (by selecting specific varieties preferentially), evolution would come to a dead stop without some mechanism of replenishing that variation. That's what mutation (specifically point mutation) does; replenishes genetic variability.

Where do you come up with this stuff? Natural selection indeed ... if a creature is driven to extinction by natural selection ... how does it become an evolved version of it's previous self? Do you think that through natural selection ... countless successive generations of fish will just eventually grow legs and walk up onto the beach without change in the DNA code?

I think the answer is obvious, and you should have thought about that when whoever it was fed you this BS.

Originally Posted by HistorianDude

So the diversity of life on earth is not the product of mutations, it is the product of selection... and selection is absolutely not a random process.

The idea you reject is a creationist straw man. And I encourage you to reject as many creationist straw men as possible.

You make a lot of nonsensical declarations ... what I'd like to see from you is one coherent EXPLANATION as to how natural selection created Billions of separate species from one DNA coded organism ... without a change in the DNA of that original organism. What you try to suggest here is ridiculously impossible ... (not to suggest that mutation of DNA makes it possible) but something either had to manipulate the code ... or as I contend, the code for all of those Billions of life forms exist separately .. for which the diversity of biological life on planet earth owes no royalties to evolution.

Originally Posted by HistorianDude

Again, you assault a straw man. Nobody has every suggested that DNA was the result of a spontaneous event. It is not. DNA is a rather highly evolved molecule, arising via stepwise chemical selection from simpler precursors.

But as to those precursors... very little in chemistry is "accidental.' Natural law is invariant. It solves the same problems the same way every time. Organic molecules do not form in all sorts of energetic environments "by accident." They are the inevitable result of ordinary processes that occur all over the universe.

It is fascinating how Creationists (and conspiracy theorists) seem to have this profound aversion to things more complex than a dichotomy. As we have seen, there is at least one third option here. Invariant natural law delivers a universe that is neither accidental nor designed.

Lots of dancing here ... DNA just is .... kinda sounds like that God person to me ... I AM THAT I AM .... makes absolutely no sense ... but it sounds good.

And I can buy the Natural Law hypothesis ...really I can .... but someone or something needs to establish those laws ...... you cannot escape the fact that at some point ... and you can pick what point to start, that the Universe and those "Invariant Processes" that govern that Universe had to come from somewhere. You cannot just sidestep that and say ... it just is what it is. Just the nature of the beast .... that's a total fraud ... and you know it!

That DNA molecule had to be created ... the elements that make up that molecule had to come into existence ... the processes that work to code that DNA strand and it's 3 Billion base pairs in the proper sequences for the proper organism had to either be designed, or take place all by chance.

There is no third alternative.

Originally Posted by HistorianDude

What would lead you to believe that anything is unexplainable?

Need I point out that such a belief has been a historically risky position to take, and has never panned out no matter how tightly it has been held before? The history of science is nothing other than a record of progressive explanation of things prior generations assured us were inexplicable. The set of things for which we have no explanation shrinks every day.

Evolution itself is a theory of profound explanatory power... indeed, biology as a whole makes no sense without it at a unifying theme. Without evolution even taxonomy becomes mere stamp collecting.

No, the list of Bull$hit, nonsensical answers is simply at an all time high. In this particular instance ... the evolution answer is rather archaic 160 year old contrivance of an english elitist of the Wedgwood China dynasty, who enjoyed the writings of Malthus.

A scientific charlatan of the highest degree, who's patently ridiculous theories don't pass cursory scientific examination.

Originally Posted by HistorianDude

That said, I am now compwlled to snip and discard the vast remainder of your post, since you base your entire argument on the premise that evolution is supposed to be the result of "random chance."

It is not.

Hence your argument is false from its first sentence.

Precisely what I should have done with your post ... as not a single point possesses an iota of coherency. Mental gymnastics to which you never fail to inject, on every topic I've witnessed your remarks, bar none.

[GuyNTexas]

Originally Posted by harborlady

Wow a whole lot of editorializing personal attacks. What's so awful about science calling itself theory, in other words, admitting the possibility of being wrong or insufficient evidence to conclude with absolute certainty? Truth in advertising shouldn't be getting grief IMO. Why would anyone seek a savior in science? Absolutes are nice to have, but human beings are bound to their own limitations of perception and communicating.

This would be the problem with religious theory. It provides conclusive (absolute) answers based on nothing else but the words inspired by god filtered through the minds and hands of men who already had their own biases. If what they've written down becomes unintelligible, no one may dispute anything at all. Ever. No one may consider facts as they make themselves apparent that the world is round, even if the Bible never said a thing about the world being flat. They just made stuff up and filled in the blanks.

So what is this argument really about again? Oh yes, men hiding behind the Bible claiming they're God.

Neither science nor religion should have any fear of the truth, whatever it may be. Whether material evidence discovered at some point in the future or the metaphorical hand of God schooling us all where we all went wrong. This isn't a competition, but religious leaders making it out to be only reveals to me a profound absence of faith on their part.

Well the first point is that the idea that this is a religion versus science debate is just one of the foundational frauds. That's right, I said fraud. And to be honest, the "injection" of God into the argument seems to originate more often from the "evolutionists" side ... though the religious fanatics do their fair share too. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if some of these religious based "creationists" aren't evolutionists on the sly, desperate to find some diversion from their own, patently absurd, nonsensical arguments. It's vogue to take pot shots at religion ... particularly Christianity, these days ... we've returned to the old world of "throw another Christian on the fire". Unfortunately, what gets lost in the scuffle is the truth .... both the evolutionists and the "How to create a universe in 6 short days" crowd are both dripping with nonsensical idiocy. At the end of the day, the "creationists" are correct ... but only by default ... and only because the "intelligent design" theory (which is not exactly synonymous with creationism, though often confused as such, and probably intentionally) is the only reasonable hypothesis of the two.

I don't expect a LARGE segment of the viewing audience to "get it" .. because frankly, most of them are incapable of independent thought regardless of the subject matter (something that is proven daily on this forum alone)... which I dare say defines many evolutionists ... as well as some of their opposition who subscribe to the White Bearded Man floating in the clouds that created the universe in 6 days theory.

But not all opponents of the evolution theory are religious fanatics, in fact, I'd say they are the vocal minority, with the majority of those who support "intelligent design" the true science based pragmatists. No, this is really not religion versus science at all ... it's about legitimate science ... of which the evolutionists would be thoroughly unfamiliar ... contrary to their ceaseless claims that they are the voices of science and reason.

Frankly, I wish the religious creationists would just get out of this argument altogether ... as they provide the cover so desperately needed by the evolutionists. They waltz in toting Santa Claus in the sky .. and give false legitimacy to an otherwise ridiculous theory that monkeys men and bananas are all relatives, and share the same ancient ancestor. Of course this is an absurdity of the highest order ... but begins to look reasonable to those who consider the alternative to be the God squad and their preposterous ideas of a world only 5,000 years old, and a universe created with a wave of the hand.

Religious Creationists are an Evolutionist's best friend .. which is why you never see them citing "Intelligent Design" and ALWAYS labeling opposition as "Creationism". The term now possesses such negative connotations, that posed with the choice .... either closely examine the absurd claims of the evolutionists, or make jokes about the Christians ... the choice is pretty clear.

The results of which is also quite predictable ... the dummies remain hopelessly ignorant ... and the lie remains relatively unchallenged. And this is what you get when you have two supremely inane groups arguing. One of them will ultimately win ... while the truth becomes the loser.

[harborlady]

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

It's vogue to take pot shots at religion ... particularly Christianity, these days

I strongly disagree, and I say this as Catholic. Fundamentalist thinking took hold of any real conversation either could have with one another. Change of the guard in the Vatican took up the pattern of pompous, hostile, provocative behavior only to turn around claiming itself victimized. There is no dispute going on in Catholic schools- they teach both and have done so for quite a long while now.
I can settle this easily. Both sides of the fence need to mind their own porch. It's not possible for religion to explain the intricacies of the mysteries of life. It's not possible for science to disprove the existence of God, but if they're truly scientists committed to honesty, they just might come to a whole other conclusion proving God does exist in the distant future. If those claiming themselves to be religious would humble themselves to the reality of the universe being proof enough of God, they wouldn't be so fearful & clinging to an insane world view. Once they meet God they'd better ask God who birthed God. That omission from the Bible is confusing to say the least.

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

I don't expect a LARGE segment of the viewing audience to "get it" .. because frankly, most of them are incapable of independent thought regardless of the subject matter (something that is proven daily on this forum alone)

I don't think that's fair considering how biased most reference sources are, and some are in the business of selling bias more than others.

Lets take the real question posed to Dawkins. If we turn that around and put a microphone in the Popes face demanding to know the meaning of life in a sound byte format, he'd stumble too. It's not that simple. But instead they decided to paint a picture of utter incompetence, then take crayons and scribble over the considered answer. That's also grossly false. So now joe public is stuck between competing brands of BS put in their ear cradle to grave 24/7 from both sides trying to over sell their points.

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

No, this is really not religion versus science at all ... it's about legitimate science ... of which the evolutionists would be thoroughly unfamiliar ... contrary to their ceaseless claims that they are the voices of science and reason.

Legitimate science should prevail, I agree. If religious were indeed faithful they'd see that legitimate science describes what God made. What's the problem so- called religious have with that? The only criticism that sticks on Christians is the criticism that's legitimate. The more superficial Christians think they can get by in life taking their preachers word for what God meant the more likely Christendom will become a perverse caracature of itself. Please see westboro baptists and prosperity preachers for my meaning. There are Biblical warnings of this phenomena and they refuse to read it as applicable to themselves. The Vatican, too, is guilty of this when it refuses to see why a flock is resistant to follow something smelling foul to them. They are not permitting themselves the humility of teachers to say, "Johnny, that's a very good question. We just don't understand that part very well at this point but we hope you keep thinking hard about it and share your answer someday." Instead, true to patrician standard, tune out the questions and put on your magic Oz hat. That's letting religious instruction down.

Have evolutionists done the same? To the degree they churn out students who believe it's all figured out, they are absolutely guilty of letting scientific instruction down. They let it down because they aren't willing to let truth stand on it's own merits anymore than so-called religious are willing to interpret the Bible beyond their own limitations. They're each respectively worshiping the beam in their own eye.

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

The results of which is also quite predictable ... the dummies remain hopelessly ignorant ... and the lie remains relatively unchallenged. And this is what you get when you have two supremely inane groups arguing. One of them will ultimately win ... while the truth becomes the loser.

I see atheists that are immature feel the need to identify themselves as something other than, but in the process of establishing themselves wind up running headlong into the same patterns they accuse others. Listening to McCarthy in hindsight, he was in effect creating communists because he feared our freedom. If you're running away from something, you cannot help but run so hard into it. Fighting fire with fire doesn't work near as well as water.

Mature atheists don't feel the need for these confrontations anymore than mature religious do. Both accept the fact of subjective experiences & the subjective reasoning are the limits of human comprehension. One recycling program offers eternal rest in oblivion of ethos (Gods love), and the other offers eternal oblivion in a dirt nap paying back mother earth for all she gave. Pick your oblivion.

The real confrontation going on is the issue regarding cell research, the religious claiming every cell is sacred. No doubt we need science tempered by ethics, but religion putting on these posturing routines is not in any way helpful. It only exacerbates morality itself in a world too abstracted for it's own good. People are getting further and further away from seeing what it is they are doing, making it easier to engage in sociopathic behavior. I understand the frustration of atheists not wanting to deal with obnoxious religious but the function of temperance is undermined to the detriment of all when religious allow themselves to go this far off point with hubris. Atheists responding to them with wisecracks mucks the water even more when clarity is called for as antidote.

[Guamanians]

Originally Posted by ecvMatt

While i think that there are ways of teaching intelligent design along with evolution that step on neither Darwins nor the Constitutions toes, I say leave creationism to Parochial/private schools and Sunday schools.

My theory is that Darwin was adopted.

[Memphis1979]

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

Really ... and just what do you know of this? I'll tell you ... you know ONLY what you've been told to believe .. and therefore, because you've chosen to believe it, this makes it fact?

Let me be the first (obviously) to inform you that your wisdom is circular and contradictory. First you insinuate that the only source of that other 95% of what we see today must naturally have come from the 5% that survived and were alive after the extinction event. This ignores the possibility that the evolutionary theory itself suggests that life can spring up from the primordial soup ...rather spontaneously and accidentally. Could not THAT be a source of some of that life we see today?

If you say no, I'll agree with you ... so be careful ... you wouldn't want that to happen.



OK .... let me get this straight ... you don't believe "evolution" explains how life began? Okie dokie ... we're making progress ... you aren't a lost cause

Now, let's take this just one tiny step further ... what ever caused life to begin ... in the beginning (whatever that was) .... could that not also have happened AFTER the extinction event too? OR is that impossible? Was that beginning just a one shot deal, never to occur again?

Could not the same mechanisms at work that created life in the beginning, restart life again in a new beginning?

Ok, first off I do know what I'm talking about. Belittling your opponent when they have a good point is a sign of a weak debate.

I said in my post that I don't believe that the Theory of evolution doesn't explain how life began. There are off shoots of evolution that explain it, but they don't have a lot of evidence to support them. To me saying that evolution was the process in which life began is no more founded than saying that a creator did it. Both are equally viable facts on how life began, because the truth is we simply don't know.

We know that evolution took place after this particular extinction event because the fossil records indicate such. The species that evolved can be traced through biologic similarities to their subsequent species, and so forth and so on.

Dinosaurs took over after that extinction, and we can see their evolution from smaller reptile like creatures up to what they were 65 million years ago. Just as we can trace mammal evolution from small creatures to larger ones that then evolved into smaller and more numerous species.

Sure, there are some holes, and likely we'll never find what some people will be happy to call the "missing link". In reality this is next to impossible. What we can find are transitional species that have similarities to both the previous and the new species that have occurred.

Dawkins supports that evolution began at the beginning because it supports his cause, just like many creationists say that evolution can't exist because it may shake their fragile religious world.

All that I support is this. If there is evidence to lend itself to one particular conclusion, then that conclusion is more than likely right. Evolution has ample evidence to back up that it occurs naturally. Its happening now, it has happened before, and it will continue to happen in the future (although that the human mind has taken a lead role in how evolution is occurring by domestication of animals and plants).

My personal belief is that there was a creator, and after the moment of creation it was hands off. I don't know if that creator is aliens, a God, or a child spilling a kool-aid in a different dimension, who the hell knows. But it appears to me that there is an order to the universe that is beyond natural occurrence, but I could be wrong about that. Its such a huge concept its hard to wrap ones mind around it.

[HistorianDude]

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

That is so hilarious .... sorry, but you seem to be doing your regular impression of the all-you-can-eat BS buffet for $2.95. It's a regular routine with you.

Given the complete vacuum of substantive response in that comment, I can only suspect it is nervous laughter that I have elicited. And as to my "buffet," I note that you seem to comment on all the same issues I do, pretending to know something about them, so I'll let that irony just dangle there and age.

At least in my buffet you don't get pathetically ignorant assertions such as "thermitic lances" have something to do with thermite.

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

Perhaps the reason that they don't consider the question a meaningful one is that they don't have a meaningful answer? Maybe you believe that the question "WHEN DID LIFE BEGIN" isn't pertinent to the issue of evolution, but the reality is ... it's the MAIN ISSUE.

This is an example of the pathetic Creationist retreat from the evidence that crushed their position a century ago and relegated them to the dustbin of discredited scientific ideas. Rather than address the vast amount of evidence that establishes as fact the descent with modification of all living things on the planet from one or a very few original ancestors, you flee to a discussion of a different subject.

If you disagree that the boundary between living and on-living is arbitrary, then you should be able to give us a definition of the bright line that separates them. This would be a great accomplishment given the large number of entities that exist that are neither unambiguously living or not.

And I point out again that evolutionary biology presumes living organism and so is not dependent on the solution to the issue of abiogenesis. It does not matter if the first living thing rose spontaneously from the slime, or was seeded by meteorites, or was designed by extraterrestrials or by gods. All living things on the planet still evolved from that first living thing to produce the entire biodiversity of our planet today without any need for design or direction.

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

Did you even take 3 seconds to consider how ridiculous that statement is?

I clearly considered it long enough to have stunned you into frothing non-responsiveness.

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

The only pattern developing here is repetitive ignorance. And you need to cure this through educating yourself ... and there is enough information that I've personally posted to lift you miles above the depths to which you currently reside.

I glean through this ill tempered and otherwise meretricious reaction a disagreement that there is a pattern to the distribution of plants and animals in the fossil record. Okay... let me pose an example of one small piece of that pattern... one that has been acknowledged by John Morris of the ICR as one of the biggest hurdles for Creationism to account for.

1. The geologic column was assembled and defined by Creationist geologists (such as Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison) long before the theory of evolution was even published or considered. Therefore the sequence of the rocks is independently determined without any evolutionary assumptions. The ICR acknowledges that this is true.

2. There are rocks of a certain age that, globally, show us a world entirely populated by reptiles, amphibians and fish... and in which not a single trace of mammals have ever been found. Paleontologists have scoured those rocks for more than two centuries and never found the tiniest shred of mammal tooth, bone or fur. Again, the ICR acknowledges that this is true.

3. Later rocks, globally, show that most of the reptiles have been replaced by mammals in the same environments and same ecological niches.

4. Since the beginning of life, all living things have descended from previously living things.

QED: Mammals must have evolved from something that was not a mammal.

Note the additional fact that long after this pattern was discerned, a complete set of transitional fossils between reptiles and mammals has been discovered documenting every step in that evolution. These transitional forms all appear in the fossil record in the exact temporal sequence and location required by evolution.

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

I've already posted videos that destroy that bunk ... information that comes from molecular biologists. Genetic mutation by it's very nature is exactly the opposite ... and such statements show that you haven't the foggiest notion of what you are talking about.

The difference between you and I is that I don't hide behind videos. If I "don't know what (I'm) talking about," at least I'm actually talking. You on the other hand just point vaguely and pretend to have made a point.

Should I count the insults and contrast them with the absence of actual argument in your posts or would that be too obvious?

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

The better question is, what are you smoking? That the mutation in these redundant portions would be "silent"? If that were true, how could mutation provide "evolution" ? Silent evolution? Are you creating a new theory? The statement is so absurd on so many levels ... hello ... is anyone home? First, the idea that random mutation could add new, coherent information to this complex DNA sequence, while occurring in non-critical areas of the code is patently brain dead.

Let's lovingly dissect this paragraph and demonstrate how a responsive argument actually works. I'll ignore the first question which is really just an insult.

Q: Are you suggesting that random mutation is conveniently filling in blanks where this alleged "redundancy" exists? That the mutation in these redundant portions would be "silent"?

A: It's not "portions" of the DNA that are redundant, it is the code itself. Redundancy does not mean that there are "blanks" that are being filled in. It means that since there are 64 different DNA 64 and only 20 amino acids to code for, there must be many different codons that code for the same amino acid. An example would be the acid Isoleucine. It has four different codons; AUU, AUG, AUC and AUA. Any mutation that changed the terminal base between A,U,G or C would have no effect whatsoever on the amino acid. It would still be Isoleucine and so a mutation would have occured that would be completely silent.

Q: If that were true, how could mutation provide "evolution" ? Silent evolution? Are you creating a new theory?

The bogus claim you made was not whether or not these silent mutations drove evolution, it was whether or not (as you falsely asserted) mutations are "subtractions" from the genome. That you would make such a claim proved that you had no genuine grasp of the subject. This discussion helps put even a finer point on that fact.

Q (sorta): First, the idea that random mutation could add new, coherent information to this complex DNA sequence, while occurring in non-critical areas of the code is patently brain dead.

Your complete unfamiliarity with genetics helps explain how you leaped without noticing from a discussion of silent mutations to a unique and new straw man of your manufacture. It does not appear that you understand what genetic variation is. Let me hold your hand as we across this conceptual street together. First with point mutations:

You have all the same genes as your (rhetorical if not real) brother. You possess all the same proteins he has for the structure and functioning of your body. Yet you are not exactly the same. How can this be?

This is because the genes that codes for your proteins are a tiny bit different from the genes that code for his. His proteins are a tiny bit different from yours... and that can only be because specific amino acids in your proteins are different from his.

Therefore, one of you is (say) just a little taller than the other. Both of you are alive, and both can function normally. But one of you (your brother) can reach the top shelf of the pantry more easily than the other. And if all the food is on the top shelf, he has an evolutionary advantage over you... he is more fit.

Point mutations (that are not silent) created the differences in amino acids between you and your brother. They have created a set of siblings that are not equally fit given the food is all ont the top shelf. They have added to genetic variation... and provided the raw material on which selection can work.

You starve to death without leaving children, your brother has lots of kids each with the tall gene. Evolution has occurred.

Any new mutation that adds or subtracts even a tiny bit from the height of your brother's descendants will add new genetic variation into the mix. In this way... a point mutation is always additive to the genome.

This is pretty basic stuff... sort of like the definition of "thermitic."

Now with gene duplications (macromutations).

When cells replicate, they often experience replication errors in which certain sections of DNA are not just copied, but copied more times than necessary; a duplicated sequence results that shows up more than once in the new DNA strand. But as long as one good copy of the original gene is made, the DNA molecule functions perfectly without skipping a beat.

Sometimes the sequence that is duplicated creates a complete duplicate gene. For example, the gene that codes for the protein Opsin (the color sensitive protein in the retina of the eye) my duplicate and so the organism now has two complete Opsin genes.

This has by definition doubled the coherent genetic information in the genome for Opsin.

Now that there are two functioning genes for Opsin, one can continue to work exactly as it always had while the other is free to evolve... in this case to an Opsin tuned to a slightly different wavelength of light. This is how (for example) primates with only bicolor vision (like most other mammals) evolved tricolor vision in the old world monkeys, apes and humans.

[HistorianDude]

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

Where do you come up with this stuff?

Unlike you, I actually study a subject before I feel competent to comment on it.

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

Natural selection indeed ... if a creature is driven to extinction by natural selection ... how does it become an evolved version of it's previous self?

You don't understand evolution at all, do you. Creatures (individuals) do not evolve. Populations do. You need to get a handle on what "species" means in biology.

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

Do you think that through natural selection ... countless successive generations of fish will just eventually grow legs and walk up onto the beach without change in the DNA code?

Of course not... but all the DNA needs to do is provide a pool of variation from which to select. And mutations are great at providing that variation.

Remember:

1. Mutations create genetic variability.

2. Natural selection eliminates some of that variation by preferentially preserving the most fit mutations.

Rinse and repeat.

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

You make a lot of nonsensical declarations ... what I'd like to see from you is one coherent EXPLANATION as to how natural selection created Billions of separate species from one DNA coded organism ... without a change in the DNA of that original organism.

No need, since this is just another straw man. The DNA absolutely changes... and it is natural selection that picks exactly what changes and how.

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

And I can buy the Natural Law hypothesis ...really I can .... but someone or something needs to establish those laws ...... you cannot escape the fact that at some point ... and you can pick what point to start, that the Universe and those "Invariant Processes" that govern that Universe had to come from somewhere.

Actually, I can escape it with ease since it not a "fact," it is a bald assertion. The universe did not have to "come from somewhere" at all. All the evidence is that the universe has always existed... it is eternal and uncreated.

It is only theists that demand creation ex nihilo, not scientists.

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

That DNA molecule had to be created ... the elements that make up that molecule had to come into existence ... the processes that work to code that DNA strand and it's 3 Billion base pairs in the proper sequences for the proper organism had to either be designed, or take place all by chance.

There you go with the false dichotomy again. There is a third alternative... evolution by natural selection. It is a nonrandom process that requires no designer.